- Meryem Alaoui (?, Morocco) – La verité sort de la bouche du cheval (2018, English trans. Straight from the Horse’s Mouth, 2020). This novel tells the story of the thirty-four-year-old struggling Jmiaa, a prostitute who lives alone with her seven-year-old daughter in Casablanca, Morocco. She meets the young, aspiring Moroccan-Dutch film director Chadliaa, who wants to make a movie about the life in Jmiaa’s poor quarter of the city and needs an actrice. This provides Jmiaa the opportunity of a lifetime. The novel is a humorous account of day-to-day life in Casablanca in all its facets (also in O: Occupations, Professions and Hobbies: Cinema).
- Tahir ben Jalloun’s (1944- , Morocco) Harrouda (‘Harrouda’, 1973) and La Prière de l’absent (‘The prayer of the absent’, 1981).
Harrouda describes a young Moroccan boy’s, view on women and sexuality as he observes the prostitute Harrouda and his mother. The novel looks at three Moroccan cities: Fez, Tangier, and an imaginary city, which each represent different attitudes towards sexual liberty. La Prière de l’absent centers “Yamna, an old prostitute, Sindibad, a beggar with amnesia, and Boby, a man with dreams of becoming a dog”, who wander together through Morocco (reference).
- Jamāl al-Ghīṭānī’s (1945 – 2015, Egypt) short story ‘Hadhāmā Jarā lil-Shābb alladhi Aṣbaḥa Funduqīyyan’ (‘This is what happened to the boy who became a receptionist’). The hero of the novel is a young man who has recently obtained a degree in political science but has accepted to work as a hotel receptionist. He soon realizes that he has been hired for his good looks and with great reluctance agrees to sleep with two foreign women. When a Saudi prince requests his companionship however, he resigns only to be scolded at by the hotel manager who is afraid the young man’s refusal will upset the relationship between Egypt and Saudi Arabia (reference). The short story can be found in the collection Risālat al-baṣāʾir fī al-maṣāʾir (‘The Epistle of Insights into the Fates’, 1989).
- Fuʾād al-Tikirlī’s (1927 – 2008, Iraq) first short story ‘al-ʿUyūn al-Khuḍr’ (‘Green Eyes’, 1952). This story is told through the reflections and reminiscences of young women travelling by train. A victim of a patriarchal society promoting the sexual exploitation of women, she has learned that a woman should life without any emotions such as hate and disgust. She has encountered only one man who seemed to treat her with respect in her life, although he still disappointed her. She remembers having begged him to help her as she was dependent on a pimp in whore house. Two weeks after this occurrence, the man came back with his friends who one after the other had sex with her while he watched (reference).
- Fātiḥah Murshīd (1958-, Morocco) – Makhālib al-Mutʿah (‘Claws of pleasure’, 2018). This novel is a portrayel of two young unemployed educated men, Amīn and ʿAzīz. When Amīn can’t find a job after obtaining a university degree in history and geography, ʿAzīz, who was kicked out of his family home after his father remarried and was unable to find work after is university education, suggests he becomes a prostitute. ʿAzīz himself had also become a prostitute through his German girlfriend. This novel shows the effects of a hopeless economic situation and lack of work opportunities in combination with a broken family life (reference).
Refrences:
In order of appearance
- Katarzyna Pieprzak. 2003. “Ben Jelloun, Tahar”, in Encyclopaedia of African Literature. eds. Simon Gikandi, Routledge: New York, p. 78
- Hanadi al-Samman. 2008. “Out of the Closet: Representation of Homosexuals and Lesbians in Modern Arabic Literature.” JAL 39: 270-310, p. 291
- Wiebke Walther. 1995. “Distant Echoes of Love in the Narrative Work of Fuʾād al-Tikrilī” in Love and Sexuality in Modern Arabic Literature, eds. Roger Allen, Hilary Kilpatrick, and Ed de Moor. London: Saqi Books, 131-139, p. 133
- Aḥmad al- Aghbarī. 2018. “Riwāyah ‘Makhālib al-Mutʿah’ lil-Maghribiyyah Fātiḥah Murshīd: al- Istighlāl al-Jamālī wa al-Insānī ʿalā al-Shāʾik” www.alquds.co.uk, 24 July 2018, https://www.alquds.co.uk/%EF%BB%BF%D8%B1%D9%88%D8%A7%D9%8A%D8%A9-%D9%85%D8%AE%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%A8-%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%85%D9%8F%D8%AA%D8%B9%D8%A9-%D9%84%D9%84%D9%85%D8%BA%D8%B1%D8%A8%D9%8A%D8%A9-%D9%81%D8%A7%D8%AA%D8%AD/ (last accessed 14 November 2021)