Abdelkebir Khatibi

Abdelkebir Khatibi (; 11 February 1938 – 16 March 2009) was a prolific Moroccan literary critic, novelist, philosopher, playwright, poet, and sociologist. 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. His collection of essays is one of his most notable works.

Career

Khatibi was born on 11 February 1938, in the Atlantic port city of El Jadida. By the age of 12, he began to write poems, in Arabic and French, which he sent to the radio and newspapers. He studied in the French colonial school system, at Lycée Lyautey. He earned his doctorate in sociology under the French-Tunisian intellectual Albert Memmi at the Sorbonne in 1965. Two plays, La Mort des artistes (1964; “The Death of the Artists”) and Le Prophète voilé (1979; “The Veiled Prophet”), and a novel, Le Livre du sang (1979; “The Book of Blood”),“ demonstrate Abdelkebir Khatibi's theoretical approach to literature”.

He taught at Mohammed V University in Rabat and worked as a director of the Institut de sociologie (Institute of Sociology) from 1966 until the institute's closure in 1970. His sociological studies include works on Moroccan social life such as Bilan de la sociologie au Maroc, 1968; Études sociologiques sur le Maroc, 1971; and La Blessure du nom propre, 1974.

He was editor-in-chief of the journal ; he renamed it in 1987. His landmark collection of critical essays Maghreb pluriel was published in 1983.

He was a member of the Moroccan Communist Party and participated in the student activist organization the .

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.

Khatibi is survived by his widow and their two children.

Awards and honours

1977: Prix Broquette-Gonin for his work L’art calligraphique arabe 1994: Prix du Rayonnement de la langue et de la littérature françaises 1997: Prix Grand Atlas for his work Du Signe à l’image, le tapis marocain (co-author Ali Amahan) 2008: Grand Prix SGDL de Poésie for his work Poésie de l'aimance

Partial bibliography

Correspondence

Essays

Novels

De la mille et troisième nuit [From the Thousand and Third Night] (1980)

Un été à Stockholm''' [A Summer in Stockholm] (1992), Flamarion Triptyque de Rabat [Rabat Triptych] (1993)

Plays

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

Poetry

Sociology

Études sociologiques sur le Maroc [Sociological Studies Regarding Morocco] (1971)

Writings on Abdelkebir

Ludmilla Fermé-Podkosova, « Abdelkébir Khatibi », in Christiane Chaulet Achour, Corinne Blanchaud ed., Dictionnaire des écrivains francophones classiques : Afrique subsaharienne, Caraïbe, Maghreb, Machrek, Océan Indien'', Éd. H. Champion, Paris, 2010,