Reading as an Act of Resistance ?

 Here is an article from  the Arab Weekly (Oct 2020) on publishers in Morocco trying to promote reading (and therefore buying books)  in conjunction with a celebration of the Green March. 

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Moroccan publishers promote reading as ‘act of resistance’

RABAT- The Union of Moroccan Publishers will launch an initiative titled “reading is an act of resistance” on November 6 to commemorate the 45th anniversary of Morocco’s Green March.

The Green March is a mass demonstration organised by tens of thousands of Moroccans in November 1975 to call on Spain to return the Western Sahara to Moroccan sovereignty.

“Publishers, readers, writers and everyone who is interested in books and reading are invited to participate in this initiative that will last until December 20,” the Union of Moroccan Publishers said in a statement.  

FULL ARTICLE

credit: Librarie Tazi (Casablanca, Morocco)

 

Book Piracy in Morocco

Here is an  Agence France-Presse article from 2018 about what was then a thriving trade in pirated books in Morocco. Somehow we missed it then, but one wonders what the situation is now. 

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Thriving trade in pirated reads vexes Moroccan bookshops

Tuesday, 02 Oct 2018

 With a backpack filled with pirated books, Khalid wanders the streets of Rabat peddling cheap reads – part of a flourishing black market eliciting howls of protest from Moroccan bookshop owners.

“It’s true that it’s not legal, but the price of these books attracts readers,” says Khalid, 25, who hawks his wares at cafes in Morocco's capital.

A little more than a year ago, he sold pirated DVDs, but Khalid says that market was hit when it became possible to watch films on a smartphone.

One of a large number of young Moroccans working informally in a country with high youth unemployment, he quickly found bookselling the only way to make a living.

Along the main streets of Rabat’s historical centre, dozens of other street vendors sell books in Arabic, English and French.

FULL ARTICLE

Book Review of Tazmamart by Aziz Binebine

Here is a review of the book Tazmamart by Aziz Binebine, a memoir of his experience in the now infamous Moroccan secret prison with that name.

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Incarceration in a purpose-built dungeon in Morocco has produced a memoir that is a tribute to human fortitude and imagination 

Toby Lichtig
Fri 15 May 2020 02.30 EDT

...Tazmamart was a purpose-built dungeon situated in the Atlas mountains, searing in the summer, freezing in the winter, cramped and hellish all year round. The rations were meagre, the clothes spartan, the sewers open. Exercise consisted of “the diagonal of life” – “four steps one way and four the other, a half-turn to the left and right alternately, so as not to get dizzy”. The prisoners were repeatedly reminded that their sole exit was death. Only following international pressure did Morocco admit to the prison’s existence and close it down. Of the 58 men sent there after the coup attempts, more than half had died.

Tazmamart was a pit of despair – but also a well of stories. Several memoirs and documentaries have emanated from its horrors, along with a novel, This Blinding Absence of Light (2001) by Tahar Ben Jelloun, probably Morocco’s most famous living author. He had based it on a three-hour interview with BineBine, whom he renamed Salim...

FULL ARTICLE

Face-books: Publishing via Social Media in Morocco

Here is an article from Qantara which was originally written in Arabic on the use of social media platforms by Moroccans to self-publish novels and to share information about reading.

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Published by Facebook

Social media has democratised literary publishing, paving the way for young Moroccan writers to publish works which previously would not have enjoyed publication through traditional outlets.

By Ismail Azzam
(translated by Chris Somes-Charlton)

As the trend in social media took off, there was a fear that it would drive young Moroccans further away from writing, against a background of dismal statistics showing that most people in North Africa and the Middle East read only a few pages a year. This fear found its echo in the invasion of smartphones into everyday life, in such a manner that left books as no more than decoration in the front rooms of many households.

Despite this gloomy outlook, many Moroccans actually use social media to find out about books. Visit social media sites and you will see Facebook groups such as "Publications Iʹve read", "Ktoubna" and "Book share". These groups attract tens of thousands of eager readers. Moreover, Moroccan readers get involved in the group discussions on individual books via the Goodreads platform to review the writings.

This interest does not stop at reading books; it extends to writing them as well. These days it is apparent that many young Moroccan writers set out to write novels early in their lives, even though some of them are only known for their literary aptitude through Facebook.

Amongst those writers with whom Moroccan readers have become acquainted via social media is Abdul Aziz al-ʹAbdi who recently published "The book of faces" (a literal translation of Facebook). There is also Abdul-Samiʹ Bensaber, who recently published the novel "A Serpentʹs tail", as well as Mohammed Benmiloud who wrote "The Dangerous Neighbourhood", as well as many others who have either just begun or recently circulated their literary works on social media.

In this article, we will look at some of these writers, although the choice of the names below is not a reflection of their literary merit or lack of it. Rather, they are examples which shed light on the phenomenon of writing amongst young Moroccans.


FULL ARTICLE

The man who wrote Morocco’s first post-colonial Arabic-language textbooks

Here is a piece that appeared on the Yabiladi  website  on Ahmed Boumakh, the man who wrote Morocco's first Arabic textbooks after colonialism.

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Ahmed Boukmakh, the teacher behind Morocco’s first Arabic-language textbooks

After Morocco broke free from the French, Ahmed Boukmakh created a textbook series he dubbed «Iqrae». The latter was meant to revive the Arabic language in the kingdom after independence.

...More : https://en.yabiladi.com/articles/details/68706/ahmed-boukmakh-teacher-behind-morocco-s.html

Ahmed Boukmakh, the teacher behind Morocco’s first Arabic-language textbooks 

by

image: en.yabiladi.com

Latifa Babas

...More : https://en.yabiladi.com/articles/details/68706/ahmed-boukmakh-teacher-behind-morocco-s.html

For Moroccans who attended public school, he was the man behind their colorful textbooks, a teacher that they nostalgically mention nowadays. He is Ahmed Boukmakh, a Tangier-native who dedicated his professional career to his students.

His name has been associated with the recent the decision taken by the Ministry of Education, amending textbooks in the Kingdom.

Born in the 20s, amid the Rif war, Boukmakh was known in Morocco for creating a series he entitled «Iqrae» (read) to revive the Arabic language after the country broke free from the French. But before having the idea of contributing to the educational sector in the Kingdom, Ahmed Boukmakh was an ordinary kid, who left home to stay at his father’s shop in the city.

FULL ARTICLE 

For Moroccans who attended public school, he was the man behind their colorful textbooks, a teacher that they nostalgically mention nowadays. He is Ahmed Boukmakh, a Tangier-native who dedicated his professional career to his students.
His name has been associated with the recent the decision taken by the Ministry of Education, amending textbooks in the Kingdom.
Born in the 20s, amid the Rif war, Boukmakh was known in Morocco for creating a series he entitled «Iqrae» (read) to revive the Arabic language after the country broke free from the French. But before having the idea of contributing to the educational sector in the Kingdom, Ahmed Boukmakh was an ordinary kid, who left home to stay at his father’s shop in the city.


...More : https://en.yabiladi.com/articles/details/68706/ahmed-boukmakh-teacher-behind-morocco-s.html

For Moroccans who attended public school, he was the man behind their colorful textbooks, a teacher that they nostalgically mention nowadays. He is Ahmed Boukmakh, a Tangier-native who dedicated his professional career to his students.
His name has been associated with the recent the decision taken by the Ministry of Education, amending textbooks in the Kingdom.
Born in the 20s, amid the Rif war, Boukmakh was known in Morocco for creating a series he entitled «Iqrae» (read) to revive the Arabic language after the country broke free from the French. But before having the idea of contributing to the educational sector in the Kingdom, Ahmed Boukmakh was an ordinary kid, who left home to stay at his father’s shop in the city.


...More : https://en.yabiladi.com/articles/details/68706/ahmed-boukmakh-teacher-behind-morocco-s.html

For Moroccans who attended public school, he was the man behind their colorful textbooks, a teacher that they nostalgically mention nowadays. He is Ahmed Boukmakh, a Tangier-native who dedicated his professional career to his students.
His name has been associated with the recent the decision taken by the Ministry of Education, amending textbooks in the Kingdom.
Born in the 20s, amid the Rif war, Boukmakh was known in Morocco for creating a series he entitled «Iqrae» (read) to revive the Arabic language after the country broke free from the French. But before having the idea of contributing to the educational sector in the Kingdom, Ahmed Boukmakh was an ordinary kid, who left home to stay at his father’s shop in the city.


...More : https://en.yabiladi.com/articles/details/68706/ahmed-boukmakh-teacher-behind-morocco-s.html

Ahmed Boukmakh, the teacher behind Morocco’s first Arabic-language textbooks

After Morocco broke free from the French, Ahmed Boukmakh created a textbook series he dubbed «Iqrae». The latter was meant to revive the Arabic language in the kingdom after independence.

...More : https://en.yabiladi.com/articles/details/68706/ahmed-boukmakh-teacher-behind-morocco-s.html

Ahmed Boukmakh, the teacher behind Morocco’s first Arabic-language textbooks

After Morocco broke free from the French, Ahmed Boukmakh created a textbook series he dubbed «Iqrae». The latter was meant to revive the Arabic language in the kingdom after independence.

...More : https://en.yabiladi.com/articles/details/68706/ahmed-boukmakh-teacher-behind-morocco-s.html

Ahmed Boukmakh, the teacher behind Morocco’s first Arabic-language textbooks

After Morocco broke free from the French, Ahmed Boukmakh created a textbook series he dubbed «Iqrae». The latter was meant to revive the Arabic language in the kingdom after independence.

...More : https://en.yabiladi.com/articles/details/68706/ahmed-boukmakh-teacher-behind-morocco-s.html

Ahmed Boukmakh, the teacher behind Morocco’s first Arabic-language textbooks

After Morocco broke free from the French, Ahmed Boukmakh created a textbook series he dubbed «Iqrae». The latter was meant to revive the Arabic language in the kingdom after independence.

...More : https://en.yabiladi.com/articles/details/68706/ahmed-boukmakh-teacher-behind-morocco-s.html

Ahmed Boukmakh, the teacher behind Morocco’s first Arabic-language textbooks

After Morocco broke free from the French, Ahmed Boukmakh created a textbook series he dubbed «Iqrae». The latter was meant to revive the Arabic language in the kingdom after independence.

...More : https://en.yabiladi.com/articles/details/68706/ahmed-boukmakh-teacher-behind-morocco-s.html

Which Language to Read (in) Morocco ?

Here is an article from Reuters on the controversial decision to teach subjects in French in public primary and high schools. Somehow other countries can teach and learn in Arabic, or atleast  produce truly bilingual people, but this seems challenging in Morocco.  The article leaves out the simulateous efforts to introduce Arabic dialect (as opposed to standard Fusha) into children's text books.
Perhaps there are political and not just economic reasons to want to distance youth from
Arabic?

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Image by Gareth Smail, .https://pulitzercenter.org/

Morocco looks to French as language of economic success
Ahmed Eljechtimi

With so many students dropping out of university because they don’t speak French, the government has proposed reintroducing it as the language for teaching science, maths and technical subjects such as computer science in high schools.

It also wants children to start learning French when they start school.

The country’s official languages are Arabic and Amazigh, or Berber. Most people speak Moroccan Arabic – a mixture of Arabic and Amazigh infused with French and Spanish influences.

In school, children are taught through Arabic although they don’t use it outside the classroom. When they get to university, lessons switch to French, the language of the urban elite and the country’s former colonial masters. Confused? Many are.

Two out of three people fail to complete their studies at public universities in Morocco, mainly because they don’t speak French. 

FULL ARTICLE 

A Morocco Anthology - Book Review of a Volume of Moroccan Travel Writing

Here is a piece from the National that reviews a recent publication on travel writing about Morocco, A Morocco Anthology, which is edited by Martin Rose .
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Book review: A Morocco Anthology: Travel Writing through the Centuries

 by Lucy Scholes

Ali Bey el Abbassi was a Spaniard from Barcelona, born in 1767, who claimed he was a descendant of the Abbasid caliphs. He made his name as an explorer and spy in the Islamic world, ­travelling and behaving in every way as a Muslim, who visited Morocco between 1803 and 1805. Although he was apparently ultimately denied Muslim burial when he passed away in Damascus in 1818 because a cross was found on his person.

On 23rd June, 1803, he crossed the Strait of Gibraltar – a mere fourteen miles, ­Martin Rose, A Morocco Anthology’s editor, points out, but in every other way a gulf between two completely different worlds.

El Abbassi sailed into Tangier, “the gateway” of Morocco for Europeans in the era before air travel. Rose describes it as a “strange and perhaps unique place,” one that for 23 years in the late seventeenth century was actually in the possession of the English crown, having been part of Catherine of Braganza’s dowry when she married the English monarch Charles II in 1661.
FULL ARTICLE

10 books based in Tangier

Here is a piece from the Guardian on 10 books based in Tangier, Morocco. Of course no list is definitive, and when you're looking at English langauge literature on the city you're going to have an over representation of Paul Bowles, but its nice to have suggestions. Also, what about  The Alchemist?

credit:logopop

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Mark Twain. Edith Wharton. Patricia Highsmith. The Beats. At one time or another, these literary figures passed through Tangier, and were inspired by the places they saw and people they met. Then there is the wealth of great writers born there: traveller Ibn Battutah, storyteller Driss ben Hamed Charhadi, writer Mohamed Choukri.

Despite this literary link, finding stories set in Tangier is a difficult feat, particularly ones by Arabic writers. The problem lies in language; in Morocco, which language you decide to write in – Arabic or French – is crucial, and while some work will eventually be translated into English, this is not always the case. There also appears to be fewer women writing about Tangier – my list features an almost exclusively male perspective of the city. There are, in fact, female Moroccan writers: Fatema Mernissi, an Arab Islamic feminist whose most well-known work was Beyond the Veil; Leila Abouzeid, whose novella Year of the Elephant was the first work by a Moroccan woman to be translated from Arabic to English; and Leïla Slimani, a Franco-Moroccan writer who won the Prix Goncourt for her novel Lullaby.
Here is my selection of books by authors from Tangier, who passed through, or who even adopted the city as their home.

FULL ARTICLE