The Amazigh writer and novelist, Mustafa al-Qadawi, confirms that “Amazigh publications have multiplied greatly in recent times,” saying: “We have experiences of writers who were able to emerge from the local shell, in terms of writing and handling, even if they are still captive in terms of dealing.”
Al-Qadawi had recently released his new novel in Berber, under the title: “Ofog”, which means exit, in which he tells the story of Haddou’s exit from the Algerian city of Oran to his village in the Rif region in northern Morocco in the late fifties of the last century.
The novels of the owner of “Ofog”, along with the literary writings of a young generation of Moroccan Berber writers, seek to bring about dynamism in the cultural and literary arena in the Kingdom, as “it tries to make its voice heard and write on the character,” al-Qadawi explains to “Sky News Arabia.”
The same speaker continued, “Creativity in Amazigh is a kind of exit, and at the same time it is a return; on the basis that the word that the Amazigh creator writes is like throwing a stone into a cavernous well. That throwing is what is meant by exit. As for the return, it is what the creator hopes to hear.” It sounded like any other language.”
A clear development of Amazigh literature
The researcher at the Royal Institute of Amazigh Culture, Fouad Azroual, stated that the new Amazigh literature in the Kingdom is “that literature that was created in the Amazigh language, written within the framework of printing and publishing by modern methods, whose first signs appeared in the early nineties of the last century, supported by a modernist vision.”
Azroual explained, in a statement to “Sky News Arabia,” that this vision “calls for the creation of new artistic and literary values that seek to transcend traditional methods, forms, and genres in literary expression, and seek to enrich Amazigh culture with literature that is characterized by pluralism and openness to new expressive and creative styles that respond to of the socio-cultural transformations that concerned Moroccan society.
The author of the book “Contemporary Amazigh Literature in Morocco, Its Appearances and Issues,” does not deny that “the movement of authorship in the Amazigh literary field was initially characterized by a lot of hesitation and interruption, but starting from the beginning of the current century, it witnessed a clear development in production and a strong integration into the movement of contemporary Amazigh creativity.” Thus, the new Amazigh literature was able to establish its creative legitimacy in contemporary Moroccan literature.
An experience that possesses all kinds of legitimacy
The critic and university professor, Miloud Othmani, believes that “the experience of writing in the Amazigh language is one of the doors of writing in Morocco, and a social and cultural manifestation that possesses all kinds of legitimacy, and it needs intensified efforts and the cooperation of writers and scholars, whether critics or academics.”
In his interview with Sky News Arabia, Othmani calls for “establishing university traditions and integrating this writing into the critical and academic fabric in fairness and in order to preserve the diversity and distinction that have always characterized North African culture, in general, and Moroccan culture in particular.”
The author of the book “The Effectiveness of Novelist Imagination” stresses that “there is an urgent need to encourage this type of literary and critical writing, so that it occupies the position it deserves as an authentic expression of authentic national entities.”
failures in the experiment
Literary critic Kamal Zabayer believes that written awareness in the Amazigh literary writing experience “is still limited and simple at times, as some failures can be recorded in many attempts, as a result of being attempts that are dominated by description, report and rhetoric.”
And the author of the book “The Aesthetic of Modern Moroccan Amazigh Poetry” continued, in his interview with “Sky News Arabia,” that “this failure has several reasons, including the lack of serious writers keen to continue writing, renewing and modernizing literature, and the limited culture of some of these creators, and then the lack of Critical meetings and the absence of follow-up criticism interested in this literature.
The same critic recorded that “the transformation of Amazigh literature in Morocco from its oral nature to codification and writing is not one of the ordinary and simple transformations that may affect all literatures from time to time, depending on new knowledge, methods and events, but rather a transition in the depth of the course of this literature and an epistemological image in its history.” This is what researchers and those interested in are supposed to be aware of the accuracy of the stage and the importance of transition.
#Morocco. #young #generation #writers #publishes #novels #Amazigh