Abdelkebir Khatibi

Abdelkebir Khatibi (11 February 1938 – 16 March 2009) was a Moroccan literary critic, novelist and playwright. Affected in his late twenties by the rebellious spirit of 1960s counterculture, he challenged in his writings the social and political norms upon which the countries of the Maghreb region were constructed.

Career

A native of the Atlantic port city of El Jadida, Abdelkebir Khatibi was born in the middle period of Morocco's 44-year (1912–56) status as a French protectorate. A French-speaking member of the educated class, he studied sociology at the Sorbonne, receiving a doctorate in 1967. His dissertation, Le Roman maghrébin [The Maghribian Novel], which examines the question of how a novelist could avoid propagandizing in the context of a postrevolutionary society, and its follow-up, Bilan de la sociologie au Maroc [Assessment of Sociology Concerning Morocco] were both published shortly after the Paris Spring unrest of May 1968.

Final years

In his later years, Abdelkebir Khatibi had been suffering from a chronic cardiac condition which led to his death in the Moroccan capital, Rabat, five weeks after his 71st birthday. During the final stages of his illness, a measure of the high regard in which he was held was seen in the personal concern of King Mohammed VI who directed his transfer to Morocco's premier medical facility, Sheikh Zayed Hospital.

Bibliography

Partial list of books

• Études sociologiques sur le Maroc [Sociological Studies Regarding Morocco] (1971)
• La Mémoire tatouée [Tattooed Memory] (1971) ISBN 2-264-00220-4
• La Blessure du nom propre [The Wound Under Its Own Name] (1974)
• Le Livre du sang [The Book of Blood] (1979) Gallimard ISBN 2-07-028677-0
• De la mille et troisième nuit [From the Thousand and Third Night] (1980)
• Amour bilingue [Bilingual Love] (1983); Love in Two Languages (1990 English translation by Richard Howard, published by University of Minnesota Press)
• Un été à Stockholm' [A Summer in Stockholm] (1992), Flamarion ISBN 2-08-066473-5
• Triptyque de Rabat [Rabat Triptych] (1993)

Plays

• La Mort des artistes [The Death of the Artists] (1964)
• Le Prophète voilé [The Veiled Prophet] (1979)

References

• Abdelkebir Khatibi in Encyclopædia Britannica Online

External links

• List of works by and about Abdelkebir Khatibi
• "Décès de l'écrivain et sociologue Abdelkébir Khatibi" ["Death of Writer and Sociologist Abdelkebir Khatibi" (Le Matin obituary of 16 March 2009 [includes photograph]) [in French]
• "Abdelkébir Khatibi s'en va!-----L'homme a marqué la littérature marocaine par son empreinte exceptionnelle" ["Abdelkebir Khatibi Is Gone!-----Marked Moroccan Literature with His Exceptional Imprint" (posthumous tribute by Hayat Kamal Idrissi in Le Matin of 16 March 2009 [includes photograph]) [in French]
• "Abdelkébir Khatibi vient de décéder-----Disparition. L’hommage fraternel de Patrick Chamoiseau au poète, et intellectuel engagé, qui fut grand prix de l’Académie française en 1994" ["Abdelkebir Khatibi Has Died-----Departure. Fraternal Trubute by Patrick Chamoiseau to the Committed Poet and Intellectual, Who Attained the Grand Prize of the French Academy in 1994"] (L'Humanité obituary of 26 March 2009) [in French]
• Rousseau, Christine. "Abdelkébir Khatibi, philosophe, sociologue et romancier" ["Abdelkebir Khatibi, Philosopher, Sociologist and Novelist" (Le Monde obituary of 26 March 2009) [in French]
• L'écrivain et sociologue marocain Abdelkébir Khatibi est mort ["Moroccan Writer and Sociologist Abdelkebir Khatibi is Dead" (Medi@terranee obituary of 20 April 2009 [includes photograph]) [in French]