«Vous êtes mon poème». La letteratura carceraria degli anni di piombo in Marocco

Abstract

Moroccan literature of the Years of Lead is a very interesting case of literature and law relationship. Moroccan society is still anchored to the past; nevertheless, it is crossed by radical political changes, in particular as far as the attention towards human rights is concerned. While from a legal perspective Ali Mezghani has referred to the Arab countries as an instance of “unfinished State”, from a literary point of view a distinction should be drawn between the historical moment of the Years of Lead in which young activists were imprisoned (Seventies) and the cultural moment in which these years’ experience resurfaced (Nineties). Writers, testimonies, interviews, films are all revolved around the same need to deal with a past which has been forgotten too often and by too many. The analysis of some of the most significant literary works of this period allows us to connect the writers’ fictions with their desire to build a future while positioning themselves in relation with a society they perceive as detached from themselves. Writing, then, becomes an elaboration of an endless mourning in which the acceptance of loss does not always turn into a composition of the modern citizen.