Here, a second extract from Abdelkebir Khatibi’s autobiographical 1971 novel La Mémoire tatouée as translated by Peter Thompson. A first one can be read in an earlier Nomadics post on 20 December. Essaouira. Cold, often swept by the current of the Canary Islands, the beach rises from the water, pushed by the bent horizon. A pale, mischievous glance is what you’d need, to avoid the grains of sand that … Read more More Khatibi
A pleasure to hear that Peter Thompson has finished translating one of the core books of Maghrebi (Moroccan, in this case) contemporary writing, Abdelkebir Khatibi’s autobiographical 1971 novel La Mémoire tatouée. Here, a brief extract (& let’s hope that a US publisher will allow us to get the book soon): I liked my rum-and-milk, my gaze blurred by the girls bouncing by. And? Robbe-Grillet and Godard? The talks burbled along, … Read more Abdelkebir Khatibi’s “Tattooed Memory”
Moroccan novelist, poet, essayist & sociologist Abdelkebir Khatibi passed away on Monday morning in Rabat. Khatibi was a major force in contemporary Moroccan writing. There are only two of his books available in English at this point, namely Love in Two Languages, translated by Richard Howard (& that one is in print probably only because Jacques Derrida’s book Monolingualism of the Other is a response to this essay by … Read more Abdelkebir Khatibi (1939-2009)