The Centenary of Idrees Al-Shraibi: A Biographer Who Explained the Defects of Colonialism in French

SadaNews - There are writers whose departure only enhances their luminous presence in the lanterns of memory; as the level of absence rises, they become immortal icons casting a shadow over the works of literary practices, for "death is an image before it is a metaphysical absence," according to French philosopher Gaston Bachelard.

Thus, the impact of true literature is not measured by the readability of the text or its digital spread today, but rather by what it can carve out in terms of concepts and leave as deep wounds in society, where serious works strive to weave a captivating relationship with reality and accompany it in the "night of questioning."

In this context, Moroccan novelist Idrees Al-Shraibi (1926-2007), whose centenary we currently celebrate, is one of the Arabic literary models that managed to express society and uncover its defects and fractures through the genre of the novel, and in a language that has long been considered a "war booty," as described by Algerian writer Kateb Yacine.

One contemplating the life of the author of "The Simple Past" will find themselves before a powerful experience in terms of form and original in terms of subject matter, building a kind of realistic literature that reflects the transformations of Moroccan society since the 1950s.

Literature as a Horizon of Reality

Al-Shraibi was keen in all his writings to remain faithful to the concepts that formed the "magical lexicon" from which he draws; where writing is closely linked to the pores of exile, racism, memory, migration, and diaspora.

These issues have transformed into paradigms through which stories and narratives crystallize, in the form of a literary project that re-engages in a sort of "double critique" of local (mother) culture and its foreign counterpart.

Thanks to Al-Shraibi, these concepts have become one of the prominent pillars within Moroccan literature written in French; he is credited with establishing these inquiries within literary imagination, allowing new generations to pursue the traces of migrants and analyze their situation within European countries, or dissect Moroccan identity and position it as equal in the lab of Western modernity.

This intellectual tendency renewed Arab literature, making it open to the other and breaking away from the cocoon of the self and simulating the reality of the post-independence era, where writing at that time was either ideologically direct or merely tantalizing emotions and nostalgia for bygone years. This writing, despite its aesthetic flourishes in the mid-1960s, remained of a traditional nature that struggled with the principles of literary modernity that permeated the structure of Moroccan culture in the early 1970s.

Critique of Moroccan Society

Idrees Al-Shraibi - who was celebrated for his centenary during the events of the 31st edition of the International Book and Publishing Fair in Rabat - recognized the importance of reality in attracting readers and pushing the text to be a child of its environment, not merely a literary borrowing. Thus, his famous first novel "The Simple Past" (1954) read as a true testimony of Morocco on the eve of independence, depicting the political backwardness and social labor of the time, which led the national elite to criticize him harshly during that period, accusing him of betrayal and praising colonialism. Whereas today, the reader finds in the novel a true critique of the concept of values within inherited traditions and their Western counterparts.

Academician and critic Dr. Mohammed Bouazza explains that Al-Shraibi is one of the most controversial Moroccan writers, and that this debate is connected to what Abd al-Kabir al-Khateebi called "the dialectical dispute" in the reception of the novel "The Simple Past."

Bouazza adds, "In this politically tense context (the period of King Mohammed V's exile), the novel sparked angry reactions from the national elite, who saw it as a distortion of society at a time when it was suffering from the injustices of occupation, considering the position a justification for France's crimes. The welcoming response of the French elite to the work heightened the rejection, leading to accusations against Al-Shraibi of betrayal and succumbing to Western seduction."

To justify the novelist's position, Bouazza points out that Abd al-Kabir al-Khateebi provided a psychological interpretation of Al-Shraibi's fierce stance; affirming that it does not stem from a political position but expresses a profound existential disconnection representing a radical model of the "problematic individual" who suffers from alienation and absolute estrangement within their society.

The author of the book "Cultural Narratives" concludes that if we free ourselves from the logic of conflict, the novel represented a foundational aesthetic turning point that transitioned Moroccan narration from the style of folkloric ethnographic novel to the model of civilizational novel and the psychological analysis of an individual torn between the culture of the colonizer and the colonized.

Bouazza concludes that "the most important intellectual achievement presented by the novel is the confirmation that liberation from colonialism can only be completed by an internal critique of the structures of local cultural and political power, which are the first seeds of what Khateebi later termed double critique."

Moroccan Literature with French Pens.. Or an Existential Wound?

Al-Shraibi has become a spiritual father of Moroccan literature written in French, which has long been met with sharp criticism, deemed merely "French literature written by Moroccan pens."

This criticism later became associated with subsequent generations such as Tahar Ben Jelloun, Abdel Latif Laabi, Mohammed Khair Eddine, and Fouad Laroui, due to the tendency towards autobiography (autobiographical) or intellectual affiliation to Francophone institutions as a cultural policy, aligning with former French President François Mitterrand's assertion that Francophonie represents a political, economic, and cultural extension.

In this context, the thinker and former Minister of Culture Bensalem Hmiş directed sharp criticism towards this literature in his famous book "Francophonie and the Tragedy of Our French Literature," considering it a hybrid mimicry and placing his writings in the category of complicity with colonial extension. However, this perspective overlooks the fact that for these writers, language was not merely a means of communication but rather a "wound of existence" imposed on them through social upbringing and scientific training; thus, writing in French here directs both the body and mind of the individual in a hidden manner.

Idrees Al-Shraibi describes this internal conflict as follows: "For the past ten years, my Arabic-speaking mind has been grinding European concepts in an extremely absurd manner, turning them into bitterness with which I understand. If it continues, it is not thanks to a principle of adaptation, but because I have borne more than I can withstand of the successive membranes that alone are adapted to the Western world."

It must be acknowledged that this literature written in French has indirectly contributed to liberating Moroccan literature written in Arabic from the grip of tradition and entrenching the centrality of self.

And this renewal was not limited to themes, but extended to artistic styles and aesthetic forms; where Moroccans began to write with a critical consciousness that believes literature is the foundation of thought and its pillar, leading to the emergence of novels that dissect reality as a form of philosophical contemplation, and others that summon history and political events with the aim of condemning the wounds of the present.

Source: Al Jazeera