1938 -
Moroccan novelist and literary critic.
Mohammed Berrada was born in Rabat, Morocco, studied in Rabat and Cairo, and received his Doctorat Troisième Cycle from the Sorbonne in 1973. Although he is bilingual, his creative writing is in Arabic; he also has translated books from French into Arabic. Berrada recently retired from his position as professor of Arabic literature at Muhammad V University in Rabat. He was editor in chief of the journal Afaq during his presidency of the Union of Moroccan Writers.
Berrada is an accomplished short-story writer who relies on symbols to convey his ideas. His short story "Qissat al-Raʾs al-Maqtuʿa" (The story of the cut-off head) is an excellent illustration of his technique; the absence of free expression in Morocco is portrayed through the surrealistic journey of a cutoff head. He also can be extremely realistic and direct, as in his short story "Dolarat" (Dollars). Berrada is concerned with the human quest for meaning in life and solutions to its dilemmas.
Berrada's novel Luʿbat al-Nisyan (1987; The game of forgetfulness) adopts a philosophical approach to human memory. While relating the childhood memories of the characters from different sources, the author demonstrates the workings of memory by sifting and discarding the events of the past. This process reveals the thin line that separates reality from imagination and casts doubt on a person's conscious recollection of the past. The only reality remains the city of Fez, a sign of immutable truth and a symbol of cherished souvenirs and elating emotions, regardless of their truth. A respect for reality is achieved through the dialogue of the various narrators of the novel, each of whom speaks the dialect that denotes his or her cultural level. Thus, Si Brahim, who is illiterate, speaks only colloquial Moroccan. A similar concern with the past is addressed in Berrada's second novel, al-Daw al-Harib (1993; The fugitive light). His semiautobiographical text Mithla Sayfin lan yatakarrar (1999; Like a summer that won't recur) sheds light on Moroccan students' lives in Egypt with a perceptive, in-depth look at Egyptian society from the perspective of narrator Hammad, who speaks for Barrada himself. The major event of the summer is the nationalization of the Suez Canal by Gamal Abdel Nasser.
The eye of the literary critic that Berrada revealed himself to be in Muhammad Mandur wa Tandhir al-Naqd al-Arabi (1975; Muhammad Mandur and the theorizing of Arabic literary criticism) is visible in the background of the creative writings but does not overwhelm them.
Bibliography
Barakat, Halim, ed. Contemporary North Africa: Issues of Development and Integration. Washington, DC: Center for Contemporary Arab Studies, 1985.
Berrada, Mohammed. La Mediterranée marocaine. Paris: Maisonneuve and Larose, 2000.
— AIDA A. BAMIA
