Mohammed Khaïr-Eddine

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El Majdoub - Awzal
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Mohammed Khair-Eddine (Arabic: محمد خيرالدين‎) was amongst the most famous Moroccan literary figures of the 20th century. Born in 1941 in Tafraout, as a young writer he joined the circle of writers known as the Amitiés littéraires et artistiques in Casablanca. In 1964 Khair-Eddir founded the "Poésie Toute" movement. In 1965 he was exiled to France where he spent years working in factories. In 1967 he started publishing again, writing for "Lettres nouvelles" and "Présence africaine". He returned to Morocco in 1979. Khair-Eddine died in Rabat November 18th 1995, the Independence Day of Morocco.

Mohammed Khair Eddine is among the greatest Moroccan writers in the French language of the 20th century, if not the greatest. He is a colossus of modern North African Francophone literature. He is also top of the list of French authors of his time. He is often equated with Rimbaud, though he himself preferred Paul Verlaine. An english comparison for uniqueness might be William Blake. The difference with Khair Eddine is that he wrote poetic novels as well as writing numerous articles and lecturing on his work at the University in Paris. He made his mark very soon after his arrival in France in his early twenties with his first published novel “Agadir”. Agadir was in fact not the first book he ever wrote. He had been sending a steady stream of manuscripts to The Seuil Publishers since he was 13 years old. He left school at 9 to pursue his own studies because he found school offered no challenge to him. He used to do his elder brother’s homework for him for practice. He returned at the age of 13 to take exams, by which time he had already begun publishing his early poetry in local newspapers and had already made a name for himself.. By the Age of 17 he had founded his own magazine, an early version of “Souffle” that two other aspiring young writers, Abdellatif Laâbi and Mustapha Nissabory later joined him in, and in which part of "Agadir" was published as a poem under the name “Bloods”. He described in a series of interviews how his career began and how he used the Seuil’s early refusals to publish him, to work at improving his writing skills and expanding his ideas. He recommended that all young people determined to write need to go through that kind of period. Refusal simply made him ever more determined to continue writing. At 15, his first long and ground breaking poem was published in a collection in London.

Agadir was the first novel the Seuil published though he had other manuscripts in his luggage when he arrived in Paris as well. It was claimed to have been written in a week. In fact he wrote it in his head over several years as he did all his novels and when they were perfect he locked himself away and put them down on paper in a matter of days. People were always astonished at how short a time it appeared to take him to produce a manuscript and were always trying to get him to produce more when he was found wondering around apparently aimlessly. But Khair Eddine never stopped working every day of his life, no matter where he was or what his circumstance. He was an observer of life around him from which he drew inspiration for his works. Agadir won several prizes for him among them "Le Prix des Enfants Terrible" created by Jean Cocteau. Sartre called him the greatest exponent of the French language alive today, and asked to meet him when he read it and Andre Malraux called him the future of French literature. Ever after that prize, he got the nickname of the angry young man of North African French literature, the rebel nobody could tame. He also spread his field of friendships across the globe; to the Carribean poets, to Samuel Beckett who like him wrote in French despite being Irish and Leopold Senghor, the poet who became President Of Senegal and with whom he stayed at times during his exile."Je suis l'Afrique qui tend ses bras ailleurs", Khair Eddine said in a radio interview. (I am Africa opening its arms to the world.)

Senghor later came to see King Hassan personally to negotiate Khair Eddine’s release from prison when he returned to Morocco in 1979.Some claim Khair Eddine's exile was by choice. Untrue. He went to visit France of his own accord but was later exiled by Hassan after writing a play about a medieval monarch searching for someone to write him a good speech to save his throne. Hassan took it personally which it wasn't and blacklisted him for life. Khair Eddine later negotiated his return in 1979 through one of the king's representative in France, but having been granted permission, he jumped on the first plane home without the necessary paperwork. He was on a blacklist to be arrested if he ever set foot in the country again. He did and he was. He disappeared for some time. There were demands from Paris as to his whereabouts. There was even a march by fellow artists. Senghor was sent an appeal to help find him. Khair Eddine claimed later it was all a mistake, that he had not been subjected to any bad treatment at all and that his jailers became friends. He commented that they served good wine in jails! However he was always shadowed by police throughout his time there. He walked out of the country in 1989 when they still refused to publish his works.

Khair Eddine not only left behind him a comprehensive collection of wonderful portrayals and understanding of life in his books and poetry, but he also expanded the literature of France as well by bringing to it a new richness of language and structures woven from images whose roots were embedded in the African continent and the oral tradition he came from. A brilliant mind, an irascible temperament, difficult, complex and illusive, charming and very funny, filled with generosity towards his fellow man, often emotional, a nocturnal being, larger than life despite his diminutive stature, he was always a privilege to know and people queued to meet him at times. Despite his fame he owned nothing and became an errant wonderer most of his later years, till his illness. He wore his heart on his sleeve, unafraid of giving everything he had or of being who he was. “I am not political, I’m just free. I’m a poet, a troubadour, a singer of songs”.

His heart and his life were devoted to the native peoples of his land. “I write for Morocco - I want to give it a modern literature it can call its own and be proud of.” He never deviated from that, even through’out his exile in France. He wrote for his countrymen; the simple peasants and peoples of the Souss he knew so well and the complexities of modern life they needed to grapple with if they were to survive. He wanted to encourage them to make that leap into modernity whilst retaining pride in their roots and culture. His books were banned in his own country, which hurt him too deeply. So he told their story to the outside world in myriad ways, painting it on canvasses of words and colour that revealed their soul and gave new life to their ancient heritage. He shed his own light for us the readers on the richness of the Sahara with its Sirrocco winds that swept up into the mountainous landscapes that were so much a part of them. He pushed at the borders of the French language to extend its usage and imagery into new spheres. He mixed poetry prose and play structures into his writings exploring how to mix them to create anew. Each book is deliberatly unique in its structure from anything previously done. Even the punctuation plays its role and had to be exact. One of his books was written without any punctuation at all; but his control of syntax was so profound that the reader never notices till it’s pointed out. He loved words and language and sought to use them to their fullest extremes, to release them from the restrictions laid down by man or in dictionaries. He spent part of his life in the study of ancient languages and though he never wrote in Arabic, he spoke classical Arabic perfectly and he sang the Koran for inspiration, without being particularly religious. He also studied science as an art form and was a wonderful exponent of his own works though sadly, he never recorded them for posterity. He could draw his characters as cartoons and play them off aloud against each other, juxtaposing their humour and their sorrows. He would explode if he found a comma in the wrong place on printers’ proofs because it altered his meaning. In consequence Khair Eddine is extremely difficult to translate and can be a demanding read.

A Berber through and through, Khair eddine had initially wanted to come to England not France when he first left Morocco because London was where he had been published. But he stopped off in France to see friends, ran out of money and never got any further. The Berbers are not Arabs. They are Celtic peoples and their languages and culture are very similar to languages such as welsh and Breton. Indeed one of his closest friends was a Breton poet with whom he could share his celtic tongue. He admired English and Irish writers most of all. People like James Joyce, Swift and Beckett. His own native tongue, Shleuh, from the Souss in the south of Morocco goes back to the time of the Phoenicians who traded with the Berbers of that area. The name Berber itself is derived from barbarian, the name given to all peoples outside their empire by the Romans at the height of their power. It defined as uncivilised and unworthy any one who escaped their orb. It also manifests the independent spirit the Berbers have always maintained and that were so much a part of Khair Eddine himself. Today there is a revival of Berber culture that would have delighted him to see and he would probably have continued to lead it. He himself has become one its Iconic figures.

Much as Khair Eddine was denied official recognition in his own country throughout much of his life, he returned home to die. Since his death from Cancer in 1995, at only 54 years old, his fellow artists and his friends have begun celebrating his life and to acknowledge the huge contribution he made.

Khair Eddine was unable to speak towards the end of his illness. But he had already set down his own farewell at the end of his novel “Le Deterreur”,years earlier, which is partly autobiographical.

"I will see you again on another orb, in another time; I will be there. Until then...Je vous salue bien... (I wish you well.)"

K.Collier

[edit] Works

Légende et vie d' Agoun' chich (Le Seuil, 1984).
Résurrection des fleurs sauvages (Éditions Stouky, Rabat, 1981).
Agadir : The author is very much taken by the "séisme" of 1960, he moves to Agadir in 1961 and stays there until 1963.

For the most part his works have been published by Éditions du Seuil :