Mohamed Choukri

Mohamed Choukri was born to a poor family in Had, Bni Chiker in the Rif region of Morocco, during a famine. He was one of many children and dealt with an abusive, violent father. His mother tongue was Riffian, a dialect of the Amazigh language. Fleeing poverty, his family migrated to the city of Tétouan and then to Tangier. Through his adolescent years, Choukri worked many jobs to survive, including serving a french Family in the Rif of French Algeria, and guiding sailors who arrived in Tangier, managing to learn Spanish that way. He found himself in the company of prostitutes, thieves and smugglers. The situation at home didn't improve however, his father was a cruel despot, and Choukri accused him of murdering his wife and his younger brother Kader. After a family dispute, he left them at 11 years old, living on the streets of Tangier, pilfering to survive, and occasionally resorting to smuggling and prostitution. At the age of 20, he'd met someone willing to teach him to read and write.

He met someone willing to help him learn to read and write in Standard Arabic, a strange language for him and to many who weren't formally educated, because what was spoken day to day was Moroccan vernacular Arabic or Darija, a dialect heavily influenced by the Amazigh language. In 1956 (Year of Morocco's independence) he left for Larache, enrolling in a primary school at the age of 21. At some point he became a schoolteacher through the Ecole Normale. Returning to Tangier in the 1960s, he continued to frequent bars and brothels, and began to write his story in Arabic, forthrightly and showing no reserve when detailing sexual experiences, which was utterly at odds with the mores of Morocco and the Arab world at the time, being met with harsh censure from religious and conservative forces in Morocco and elsewhere.

Despite the criticism, Choukri's daring and exceedingly frank style won him literary fame. His association with the Writer and composer Paul Bowles an American expat who lived in Tangier for decades. Bowles and Choukri worked on the translation of his Choukri's semi-autobiographical work For Bread Alone in 1973, and Bowles arranged for the novel to be published in the United Kingdom through Peter Owen.

For Bread Alone became an international success when published in English, but the book also caused a furor in the Arab world. When the Arabic edition emerged, it was prohibited in Morocco, on the authority of the Interior Minister, Driss Basri, following the advice of the religious authorities.[2] It was said to have offended by its references to teenage sexual experiences and drug abuse. This censorship ended in 2000, and For Bread Alone was finally published in Morocco. In 1999, For Bread Alone was removed from the syllabus of a modern Arabic Literature course at the American University in Cairo taught by Dr. Samia Mehrez due to some sexually explicit passages, prompting some observers to criticize the "ban" and blame government censorship. The incident was preceded by the removal by order of Hosni Mubarak, president of Egypt, of Maxime Rodinson's book Muhammad. While some blamed "intimidation from Islamist militants, which the government does little to prevent," in fact, the Egyptian government engaged in book banning in that period on a wide scale. Dr. Mehrez was threatened with sexual harassment proceedings and expulsion, the book For Bread Alone was examined by parliament, and the academic and literary community largely supported her use of the novel through a letter-writing campaign.

Mohamed Choukri believed he had secured that which was most important to him: a posthumous home for his literary work.

His last will and testament, in which he left his entire estate to a foundation that was to be run jointly by five presidents: "After Choukri's death, this document disappeared without a trace," says Roberto de Hollanda, who was the author's literary agent for many years.

Securing his literary legacy was of the utmost importance to Choukri, but the promises that were made to him were not kept: "The decision was whether to give it to a European or an American university or whether to entrust it to a Moroccan institution," the literary agent explains.

Mohamed Choukri chose the Moroccan option. For one thing, he was afraid that the government might stop funding his expensive cancer treatment if he gave away the rights to his work to a foreign entity. On the other hand, it would have been particularly shameful to have given them to one of the countries that had formerly colonized and oppressed Morocco.[3]

For Bread Alone was adapted to cinema by Rachid Benhadj, in an Italian-French-Algerian production in 2004. It starred Said Taghmaoui. The film premiered at the first edition of the Festival of Casablanca in 2005.

When I arrived, there were two Tangier : the colonialist and international Tangier and the Arabic Tangier, made of misery and ignorance. At these times, to eat, I compered the garbage. The European ones preferably, because they were richer.

I cannot write about the milk of birds, the gentle stranglehold of the angelic beauty, grasps of dew, the cascade of lions, the heavy breast of females. I cannot write with a crystal's paintbrush. For me, writing is a protest, not a parade.

I saw that writing could also be a way to expose, to protest against those who have stolen my childhood, my teenage hood and a piece of my youthfulness. At that moment, my writing became committed.

There's, in the Moroccan society, a more conservative faction. Those people judge my works as depraved. In my books, there's nothing against the regime. I don't talk about politics or religion. But, what annoy the conservatives, is to notice I criticize my father. The father is sacred in the Arabic-Muslim society.

• For Bread Alone, 1973
• The Tent, short stories, 1985
• Time of Errors, also called "Streetwise" 1992
• Jean Genet and Tennessee Williams in Tanger, 1992
• Jean Genet in Tanger, 1993
• Madman of the Roses, Short stories 1993
• Jean Genet, Suite and End, 1996
• Zoco Chico, 1996
• Faces, 1996
• The Internal Market, 1997
• Paul Bowles, le Reclus de Tanger, 1997

• Moroccan literature

General

• Mohamed Choukri, 1935-2003, Oussama Zekri, (French)
• "Le pain nu de Mohamed Choukri: une lecture plurielle", par Salah NATIJ, in website Ma'duba / Invitation à l'adab (French)
• Le pain nu de Mohamed Choukri et l'aventure de la traduction, par Salah NATIJ, in website Ma'duba / Invitation à l'adab (French)
• Hassan Daoud, L'homme qui savait ce qu'écrire veut dire, (French)
• Le poète aux pieds nus, Hanan Kassab-Hassan, (French)
• L'enfant terrible de la littérature arabe et écrivain maudit, Hicham Raji, (French)
• Mohamed Choukri Biography by Kenneth Lisenbee (English)
• Obituary, Mohamed Choukri, Madman of the roses, November 2003, (English)

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