Driss Chraïbi

A biography of the founder of Islam dealing with the life of the man and the religion and civilization he shaped.

Beginning with an epilogue set in the present, this novel quickly moves back to the time of the generation after Muhammad—a time when North Africa, the home of the Berber peoples, was overrun by Arab armies. With strong characters and a compelling sense of place, Chraïbi demonstrates how the Berbers tried to maintain their cultural identity in the face of the overwhelmingly rapid and powerful spread of Islam throughout their world. First published in French in 1982.

The dehumanization of the Arabs who emigrated to "Mother France" is the subject of Chraïbiʹs second novel, echoing Simple Past. This time, however, the focus is more on the values and customs of the West, whose promises to the Islamic world appear as a facade for violence and exploitation.

Upon its release in 1954, the book had the effect of a bombshell, both in France and Morocco, which was fighting for its independence. With a rare violence, the book projected the French-speaking North African novel to major topics: weight of Islam, Women in Arab society, cultural identity, conflict of civilizations.

Deux fils racontent leur mère, à laquelle ils vouent un merveilleux amour. Le plus jeune d'abord, dans le Maroc des années 30. Menue, fragile, gardienne des traditions, elle est saisie dans des gestes ancestraux, et vit à un rythme lent, fœtal. Radio, cinéma, fer à repasser, téléphone deviennent des objets magiques, prétextes d'un haut comique. Puis Nagib, le frère aîné, prend le relais. Durant les années de guerre, la mère s'intéresse au conflit, adhère aux mouvements de libération des femmes et, globalement, de son peuple et du Tiers Monde. Elle en est même le chantre. Elle sait conduire, s'habille à l'européenne, réussit tous ses examens. Elle est toujours semblable : simple et pure, drôle, et toujours tendre. -- Back cover.

Succession ouverte (1962, Heirs to the Past) is a story of Ferdi Driss, who returns to Morocco for his father's funeral. Driss has spent sixteen years in France, but now re-establishes his relations with his mother and brothers. Gradually Driss realizes how old family values have given way to the ideas of the West. "Remember, Driss? Would any of us have dared to start dinner before he got back, whether it was after midnight or dawn? You remember, don't you?". The author Driss Chraïbi (1926-2007) is a French-Moroccan novelist, considered to be the father of the modern Moroccan novel. Chraïbi's work drew heavily on his own life. Central theme in his novels was the clash between different cultures, the East and the West, Arab and French. Chraïbi's range of style changes from epic to comedy. He was one of the pioneers of Maghrebian writers to explore the oppression of women and children in an Islamic, patriarchal society.

"Je remercie la vie". C'est par ces mots que commence Vu, lu, entendu. Driss Chraïbi, le père de la littérature maghrébine d'expression française, ne se met pas en avant, mais choisit d'occuper les coulisses pour donner voix à tout un peuple, ressusciter une époque (1926-1947), vécue sur l'autre rive de la Méditerranée à travers le regard d'un adolescent ouvert au monde. Relatant ce qu'il a vu, lu et entendu, avec un humour qui n'appartient qu'à lui, Driss Chraïbi évoque, avec émotion et dans un amour gigantesque pour le pays natal, divers personnages : la figure héraldique du père, les amis français de jeunesse et surtout les grandes personnalités du Maroc, comme Allal el-Fassi, Ahmed Balafrej. "Je remercie la vie. Elle m'a comblé. En regard d'elle, tout le reste est littérature." -- Back cover.

After many years abroad, the narrator, Brahim, with his much beloved Scottish wife and two very peppy boys, returns to his home village, El Jadida, in Morocco. Having invented an alter-ego, Inspector Ali, now becoming an incubus, he finds himself "adrift" if "world famous" as the author of the too scrutible, but very Sherlockian sleuth, with great solutions to crimes to his credit. Then arrive Jock and Susan, his wife's parents from Scotland, loaded down with golf clubs and nervous expectations of a mysterious land. Islam, bankers, a statuesque cook-maid, bureaucrats, students, bakers, butchers, aging Mercedes taxi drivers, nostalgia, writers bloc, all invade and saturate this volume, crosscutting into the narrative.