The Council of the Moroccan Community Abroad organised, Tuesday, April 22, 2025, a roundtable at the International Publishing and Book Fair (SIEL) in Rabat, paying tribute to the late writer Driss Chraïbi. The event marked the 70th anniversary of the publication of “Les Boucs” in Paris, which was the first Moroccan novel on immigration (1955),. The roundtable was led by two French-Moroccan writers, Zineb Mekouar and Mustapha Kebir Ammi. The event was moderated by academic Kacem Basfao.
“Les Boucs”, title that refers to a racist French term for Arabs in Paris, explores the condition of North African immigrants in France, particularly their marginalization and struggles, through sharp social critique and a realistic portrayal of their precarious lives. Especially in housing and work. For decades, the novel has been studied for its depiction of the wandering and recognition of post-war North African immigrants in France, highlighting housing policies and the racial discrimination they had to live with.
For Zineb Mekouar, author of “La poule et son cumin” and “Souviens-toi des abeilles”, Chraibis Book brought Moroccan literature into modernity through its method, writing style, and themes.” The book’s 1989 postface, written by Chraïbi himself, “shows how, over 30 years later, it was relevant and still is in 2025.” Ms Mekouar says,”tere is still this flawed relationship with the “other”, this assignment to a fixed identity based on origin or geography, fueled by media and political narratives.” For her generation, Chraïbi’s work is a very relevant and important lesson in literature”. It gives counter-narratives to attempts to speak for immigrants or exploit their condition.
Kebir Mustapha Ammi recalled discovering Chraïbi in the 1960s through Driss El Yazami, who founded the magazine “Sans frontiers”, which later became “Baraka”, “a tool for cultural resistance.” “The first Chraïbi novel I read was Le passé simple. It was a luminous path opening before me. I wasn’t certain if I could meet the challenge of writing like him, but it was the path I wanted to follow if I achieved my dream.”
Speaking at the event, Driss El Yazami, President of the CCME, explained that the roundtable aimed “to enrich us with the different ways of reading of “Les Boucs” by two generations.” For him, “of all the literature on immigration in France, “Les Boucs” is the flagship work.” Though the novel bears the mark of the 1950s, “its essence transcends that period, and metaphorically, we are in the same situation.” He added, “Fundamentally, the difficulty of European societies, particularly French, to accept their own diversity, and their tendency to stigmatize and marginalize it, is still a reality today.”
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