In Moroccan Folk Tales , Jilali El
Koudia presents 31 classic legends
ranging from a Berber version of Snow
White to a tale of a woman who cross-
dresses as a Muslim scholar.
Author Tahir Shah moved his family
from London to Casablanca toLiterature & Cinema
Morocco has an ancient literary tradition that has only recently been recognised. Poetry and
stories have traditionally been passed along by storytellers and singers, and in manuscripts
circulated from one person to the next. Since the majority of the population couldn’t read or
afford books, Morocco’s oral tradition has helped keep shared legends and histories alive.
Watch the storytellers, singers and scribes in Marrakesh’s Djemaa el-Fna in action and you’ll
understand how Morocco’s literary tradition has remained so vital and irrepressible, despite
ongoing press censorship.
Literature
A Different Beat
The international spotlight first turned on Morocco’s literary scene in the 1950s and ’60s, when
Beat Generation authors Paul and Jane Bowles took up residence in Tangier and began
recording the stories of Moroccans they knew. From these efforts came Larb Layachi’s A Life
Full of Holes (written under the pseudonym Driss ben Hamed Charhadi), Mohammed Mrabet’s
Love with a Few Hairs, and Mohammed Choukri’s For Bread Alone. Like a lot of Beat
literature, these books are packed with sex, drugs and unexpected poetry – but if anything,
they’re more streetwise, humorous and heartbreaking.
Coming up for Air
Encouraged by the outspoken ‘Tangerine’ authors, Moroccan
poet Abdellatif Laâbi founded the free-form, free-thinking
poetry magazine Anfas/Souffles (Breath) in 1966, not in the
anything-goes international zone of Tangier, but in the royal
capitol of Rabat. What began as a journal became a movement
of writers, painters and filmmakers heeding Laâbi’s outcry
against censorship: ‘A la poubelle poème/A la poubelle rythme/A la poubelle silence ’ (‘In the
trash, poetry/In the trash, rhythm/In the trash, silence’). Anfas/Souffles published 21 more
daring issues, until the censors shut it down in 1972 and sent Laâbi to prison for eight years for
‘crimes of opinion’. Government censorship notwithstanding, the complete French text of
Anfas/Souffles is now available online at http://clicnet.swarthmore.edu/souffles/sommaire.html.
The literary expression Laâbi equated to breathing has continued unabated. In 1975,
Anfas/Souffles cofounder and self-proclaimed ‘linguistic guerrilla’ Mohammed Khaïr-Eddine
published his confrontational Ce Maroc!, an anthology of revolutionary writings. A Souss Berber
himself, Khaïr-Eddine called for the recognition of Berber identity and culture in his 1984
Legend and Life of Agoun’chich , which served as a rallying cry for today’s Berber Pride
movement ( Click here ).
Living to Tell
Still more daring and distinctive Moroccan voices have found
their way into print over the past two decades, both at homeTop of section