Abd Al Latif Mahfouz

Abd Al Latif Mahfouz (Arabic: عبد اللطيف محفوظ) Moroccan critic and intellectual,[1] and professor of higher education at Letters and Human Sciences faculty, Benmic – Hassan II University in Casablanca. He is also the coordinator of the semiotics laboratory and analysis of literary and artistic discourses of the same faculty.

He published his first critical work in 1989 on "Wadifat Al Wasef Fi Al Riwaya" (The Function of Description in the Novel)[2]. His critical project constituted one of the most prominent projects built on the foundations of pragmatic epistemology and semiotics. For more than a quarter of a century, he has worked in the semiotic narrative method, seeking to open Arab narratives to new possibilities, looking at the formation of the Arabic narrative text as a language and structure to reveal its rhetorical features and semantic visions. During his journey, he published several books that combined theory and application, such as "Aliat Iintaj Al Nas Al Riwayi" (Mechanisms of Narrative Text Production), "Al Maenaa wa Fardiaat Al Iintaj: Muqaraba Simiayiya" (Meaning and Production Hypotheses: A Semiotic Approach), "Simyayiyaat Al Tazhir" (The Semiotics of Endorsement), "Albinae  w Aldalala fi Al Riwaya: Muqaraba min Manzur Simiayiyat Al sard"  (Construction and Significance in the Novel: An Approach from the Perspective of Narrative Semiotics), and others.[3]

In addition to writings in the fields of semiotics and literary criticism, Abdel Latif Mahfouz opened up about narrative creativity, and in January 2019 he released his autobiography titled "Rohab Mutaeadid" (Multiple Phobias) by Dar Al-Fasla in Tangiers, A year later, the publisher will publish a second edition after the first one runs out in a short period. Then Abdel Latif Mahfouz will continue his narrative creativity by publishing a novel entitled "Wadi Al Laban" (Valley of Milk) by Dar Al-Fasla in Tangiers in 2021.

Speaking about the contexts of his writing of the childhood biography "Rohab Mutaeadid" (Multiple phobias) Abdellatif Mahfouz says, "Rohab Mutaeadid" (Multiple phobias), oriented more towards diagnosing the prevailing social values in the sixties and seventies of the last century in Fez, where I monitored them through simple events, which may not seem important, but the reactions towards them implicitly embody the values, and spontaneously avoid declarative; I also referred to events that narrate the difference in the general mood and the form of its division over some new entertainment products and structures that had a decisive impact on the transformation and openness of Moroccan society, such as television and cinemas.[4]