Moroccan Literature in English (and) Translation Many readers and bookshops organise their book piles, shelves and readings by country, loosely defined as the author’s country of origin, or of where the story takes place. It’s an approach to fiction I always found odd and enjoyable. There is a special kind of enjoyment to be had by sticking to the fiction of a place and concentrating on it for a while. The pleasure I derive from this may simply be due to my myopia, and the habit it brings of frowning at a single point until a clear picture emerges, but as others engage in the same, and comforted by a crowd, it’s a habit I pursue and which is now taking me to Morocco. This journey, I make accompanied by a list of Moroccan literature in English, that is, translated fiction or literature written originally in English. It is shared below for the curious and fellow addicts. I could say that my tendency to focus on a country is how the construction of the list began, but that w...
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النظرة الملموسة نتاع العيباد في الأدب لي تصيب التعبير نتاعها. علابيها لازم نحوّسو في الأدب، سيرتو في أشكالها الملموسين كثر لي هوما الشعر والمسرح، إيلا بغينا نكشفو الأفكار نتاع واحد الجيل.
But if I wanted anyone to actually understand it, I'd go for something more like this:
العيباد يعبّرو على النظرة الملموسة نتاعهم في الأدب. علابيها اللي بغى يعرف واش راهم يخممو واحد الجيل كي يكونو وحدهم، لازم يحوّس في الأدب، سيرتو الشعر والمسرح علاجال هوما ملموسين كثر.
Really I ought to do something to eliminate ملموس too, but I can't think of any quick enough way to explain the concept of "concrete", especially since I'm not sure what he means by it here in the first place!
As you point out, Whitehead uses 'concrete' in a surprising way and that is what I really like about this line, and that is what's rather striking in his message I feel. Perhaps it is surprising to find fiction, or literature, qualified as concrete. I understand it to mean 'real', opposed to fictitious, to fabricated (as in not fairy tales).
This line sums up what I think about modern Algerian literature, by that I mean Algerian fiction which is to my mind the most honest historical record of what has been happening to people since independence. It is in Algerian modern literature that we will need to look to discover what really happened to and within DZ society, at a time when history books couldn't (for various reasons) tell and keep.
Which brings me to ask: how do you say fictitious in Derja :P
Though, for the word "naḍra", you can't find the root N-Ḍ-R in Tunisian (I don't know if it exists in Algerian), it's replaced by Ġ-Z-R or X-Z-R, so the meaning of the word "xezra" can be extended to have the same meaning as "naḍra".
The problem here is that the reader has never ever studied in Maghrebi, so it's hard for him to understand such words. So, after finding the right translation of English words, those new words have to be supported by governments in their education systems.