Mohammed Berrada ( ar, محمد برادة), also transliterated Muhammad Baradah (born 1938 in
Rabat) is a
Moroccan novelist, literary critic and translator writing in
Arabic
Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C. E.Watson; Walter ...
. He is considered one of
Morocco
Morocco (),, ) officially the Kingdom of Morocco, is the westernmost country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It overlooks the Mediterranean Sea to the north and the Atlantic Ocean to the west, and has land borders with Algeria t ...
's most important modern authors.
[Salim Jay, "Dictionnaire des écrivains marocains", Eddif, 2005, p. 91]
Early life
Berrada studied literature in France.
[''Smásögur heimsins: Afríka'', ed. by Rúnar Helgi Vignisson, Jón Karl Helgason and Kristín Guðrún Jónsdóttir (Reykjavík: Bjartur, 2019), p. 105.] From 1976 to 1983, Berrada was the president of Morocco's writers union. He has for some decades taught Arabic literature at the Faculté des lettres of the
Mohammed V University in
Rabat.
He is a member of the advisory board of the Moroccan literary magazine ''Prologue''.
Career
Berrada belonged to a literary movement that wanted to experiment with new techniques of writing — what Moroccan critics call ''attajrib'' (experimentation). The text does not give much weight to the plot and is written in independent scenes, images, thoughts and portraits. In the field of language, dialects, such as Fassi (the dialect of
Fez
Fez most often refers to:
* Fez (hat), a type of felt hat commonly worn in the Ottoman Empire
* Fez, Morocco (or Fes), the second largest city of Morocco
Fez or FEZ may also refer to:
Media
* ''Fez'' (Frank Stella), a 1964 painting by the moder ...
), take on an important role, together with wordplay and allusions.
Since July 26th 1977, Berrada has been married to
Leila Shahid
Leila Shahid (born in Beirut in 1949) is a Palestinian diplomat. She was the first woman ambassador of Palestine, serving the PLO in Ireland in 1989, in The Netherlands in 1990, then serving the PA in France where she had taken office in Paris in ...
, ambassador of the
State of Palestine to the
European Union
The European Union (EU) is a supranational political and economic union of member states that are located primarily in Europe. The union has a total area of and an estimated total population of about 447million. The EU has often been de ...
.
References
Books
*''Al-Daw al-harīb'' (fleeting light) (1993) : The relation between a painter and two women of different generations, the mother and the daughter. Translated into English as ''Fugitive Light'' (2002) by Issa J. Boullata.
*''Dirāsāt fī al-qiṣṣah al-ʻArabiyah : Waqāʼiʻ nadwat Miknās'' (Bayrūt : Muʼassasat al-Abḥāth al-ʻArabiyah, 1986.)
*''Le théâtre au Maroc : tradition, expérimentation et perspectives'' (Presses Universitaires du Septentrion, 1998) .
*''L'ubat al-Nisyan'' (the game of forgetting) (Rabat: Dar al-Aman, 1986.): the story of an intellectual about his life, from his childhood to adulthood in Morocco in the middle of the 20th century. Translated into English as ''The Game of Forgetting'' (1996) by Issa J. Boullata.
*''Like a summer that will not come back'' (Sinbad, 2001) Memories of the summer of 1956 when the author studied in
Cairo
Cairo ( ; ar, القاهرة, al-Qāhirah, ) is the Capital city, capital of Egypt and its largest city, home to 10 million people. It is also part of the List of urban agglomerations in Africa, largest urban agglomeration in Africa, List of ...
.
*''Imraʼat al-nisyān : riwāyah'' (Casablanca: Nashr al-Fanak, 2001.)
*''Faḍāʼāt riwāʼīyah'' (Rabat: Wizārat al-Thaqāfah, 2003.)
*''Siyāqāt thaqāfīyah : mawāqif, mudākhalāt, marāfi'' (Rabat: Wizārat al-Thaqāfah, 2003.)
External links
The voice of the author the Mediterranean and the Moroccan vision, his thoughts on the idea of fiction and on being 'cosmopolitan'
Moroccan writers in French
Academic staff of Mohammed V University
Moroccan novelists
Male novelists
Moroccan male short story writers
Moroccan short story writers
Moroccan essayists
Moroccan male writers
Male essayists
1938 births
Living people
Writers from Rabat
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