History of the Maghrib in the Islamic Period

Jamil M. Abun-Nasr's is a finely detailed tapestry which sweeps from the early days of the Al-Moravids in Morocco to the post-colonial regimes in Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, and Libya. While the book is academic in tone, it is so well written as to be accessible to the casual reader, so long as one is willing to come to grips with the intricacies of Maghreban dynastic politics.

While I learned more from the first half of the book, which discusses pre-Modern Maghreban history; the second portion covering the modern era was particularly relevant in light of the recent rioting in France. Abun-Nasr vividly describes how the European powers — under the guise of bringing civilization — ruthlessly exploited their North African colonies. Although the fruits of their policies were most bitter in Algeria, it is clear that throughout the Maghrib the European powers' short-sighted pursuit of commercial gain had long-term repercussions for everyone involved.

Lalami Cracks the Moroccan Market

Laila Lalami, author of Hope and Other Dangerous Pursuits and of the blog MoorishGirl, is being profiled by Moroccan magazine Tel Quel. (Available on line, in French, on October 28, 2005).

Due South

Peace Corps Writers reviews former Morocco Peace Corps Volunteer Jeffrey Tayler's , about his travels through the Sahel to the south of Morocco.

A friend to the end?

I ended up reading Tahar Ben Jelloun's Le dernier ami (The Last Friend) quite by accident. I was reading quite a bit about Ben Jelloun's Cette aveuglante absence de lumière, the English translation of which () had just won the International IMPAC Dublin Award. I naively mentioned to a Moroccan friend that I was interested in reading Tahar Ben Jelloun's latest novel, and he quite naturally (and generously) offered to lend Le dernier ami to me.

Le dernier ami is the story of the formation and unraveling over several decades of an unusually close friendship between a Moroccan professor and a Moroccan doctor. The story is told from the point of view of several narrators, mainly the two principals, Ali and Mahmed. In doing so, it paints a vivid picture of Moroccan life in the late 60's and early 70's.

Quite striking to an American reader, I think, is the author's direct and matter of fact account of the sexual awakening of his two protagonists. Without indulging in the soft pornography so characteristic of modern writing in English, Ben Jelloun is quite explicit about the sexual lives of the two young men in his story. I found this remarkable in part because I have found the public face of sexuality in Morocco to be quite conventionally moral (apart from fairly widespread prostitution). Ben Jelloun recounts the ingenious ways in which his characters circumvent their society's moral strictures in order to find sexual fulfillment. (The only similar treatment of Moroccan sexuality I have run across is the opening chapters of Jeffrey Tayler's . In reading about the adolescence of Ben Jelloun's characters, I experienced the pleasant shock of finding my own naivete exposed.

From the passions of adolescence, the novel quickly passes to chilling description of the brutalities of a Moroccan prison, into which the two protagonists are cast for reasons that are never very clear, other than the fact that they are young, educated, and flirting with communism. Imprisonment forges a far closer bond between Ali and Mahmed, who rely on each other to survive the experience. In the background is the shadowy and sinister presence of General Oufkir, the Minister of the Interior, chief torturer of King Hassan II's regime, and mastermind of two failed coups, the second of which resulted in his death and the decades-long imprisonment of his family.

Their release from prison marks the point at which the paths of the two protagonists diverge. Ali becomes a professor of geography and a operator of a ciné-club in Rabat; Mahmed becomes a doctor and ventures abroad to Sweden. While Ali manages to carve an apparently comfortable niche for himself in Morocco, Mahmed is at home neither in Morocco nor in his adopted Sweden, to which he repeatedly and unfavorably compares his native land. Ben Jelloun explores not only the complex relationship between Morocco and other countries, but the complex social relations of the characters within Morocco itself. Not until the very end does Ben Jelloun manage to fuse and reconcile the growing tensions between the two friends.

As far as I know, Le dernier ami has not yet been translated into English, but it is written in a straightforward and direct French that is likely to be accessible to anyone who speaks the language at an intermediate level.