From colonial struggle to Gen Z 212, Moroccan writers have long told the story of inequality and resistance

The 'Gen Z 212' protests in Morocco have been a long time coming: growing frustration at the disparity between large-scale investment in infrastructure and upcoming football games and the underfunding of healthcare and education over the past decades has erupted in nationwide unrest and uproar.

Protesters have demanded more resources for public services, less corruption and unemployment, and primarily, a viable future against the backdrop of rapid, shiny development in the country.

This topic of inequality, however, has long been at the heart of Moroccan literature.

Since the early twentieth century — through colonial rule, the fight for independence, and the postcolonial decades that followed — writers have grappled with the enduring realities of social and economic disparity.

Across generations, Moroccan fiction has captured the voices of the marginalised: stories of poverty, hunger, and corruption; of women navigating patriarchal systems; and of lives shaped by limited access to education and opportunity.

These narratives, raw and unflinching, continue to hold up a mirror to a society still wrestling with the same inequities today, offering a glimpse into the lived realities of Moroccan people too often obscured by distant, impersonal headlines.

In true postcolonial fashion, these struggles are generally written to convey desperation and inconclusiveness, with endings that feel unresolved and open-ended, thus leaving room for alternative endings and more hopeful futures.

Spanning different formats, decades, and genres, these texts form a concise, non-exhaustive list of books to read to understand better Gen Z 212’s motivations and the broader Moroccan context.

Yassin Adnan: Hot Maroc (published in Arabic in 2016, translated to English in 2021)

Hot Maroc is Yassin Adnan’s satirical debut novel set in Marrakesh during the late 1990s and early 2000s.

The novel follows Rahhal Laaouina, an isolated young man from a poor background who suffers from bullying and marginalisation, as he discovers the internet as a powerful tool to manipulate public opinion.

The psychologically tormented man finds empowerment to express a sharp critique of Morocco’s political elite, corruption, media, and the facade of democracy, giving a voice to the subalterns of Marrakesh.

This character is more of an anti-hero; he routinely abuses his online power to cyber-abuse those who have wronged him in the past, seeking revenge for his own ill-being.

Using metaphors and hilarious absurdity, Adnan highlights the rural-urban divide in the novel, youth disillusionment, and censorship, which truly echo Gen Z 212’s current concerns.

Longlisted for the 2017 International Prize for Arabic Fiction, this novel is a deliciously satirical piece of writing that has become an essential read in the Moroccan literary landscape.

Mohamed Choukri: For Bread Alone (published in 1982)

Written in Arabic in 1972, For Bread Alone remained unpublished in its original language for nearly a decade after being banned in Morocco. It first appeared in English in 1982, translated by Choukri’s friend and fellow writer Paul Bowles, and was only fully released in Morocco in 2000 after years of partial censorship.

The contents of the autobiographical novel were deemed too controversial and offensive: Choukri wrote about his childhood and teenage years in the 1930s and 1940s, marked by extreme poverty, domestic violence, starvation, homelessness, prostitution and addiction.

The brutality of the writing reflected the disenfranchisement and systemic neglect of the poorer classes during colonial as well as early post-independence times.

Here, colonialism is portrayed from the point of view of ordinary people, who express indifference about the end of colonialism, because what difference would it make for them, when their only concern was finding bread to survive?

Choukri learns to read and write as an adult after growing up illiterate, in an effort to yank himself out of a miserable life in the margins of society.

For Bread Alone highlights the importance of investing in education, the shattering human cost of its absence, and the crucial role of literacy from the colonial period onwards.

Malika Moustadraf: Something Strange, Like Hunger (2022)

Something Strange, Like Hunger (published as ‘Blood Feast’ in the United States) is a posthumous collection of 14 short stories by Malika Moustadraf, a pioneer figure in the Arabic feminist literary scene.

She wrote about patriarchal and capitalist violence and their intersection, unveiling some of the harshest and most taboo conditions of the most disenfranchised.

Moustadraf focuses on corruption as a force that pervasively exacerbates the conditions of marginalised Moroccans, including women, people living with disabilities and illness, intersex individuals, sex workers and the poor.

Drawing from her own experience battling fatal kidney disease, before her death at the young age of 37, she uses visceral vocabulary to describe the corruption that seeps into the healthcare system with systemic underfunding and neglect.

The healthcare system still suffers from this underfunding, as we have seen from the tragic fates of eight women who died giving birth in Agadir hospitals last month due to a lack of resources, fuelling indignation and triggering the eruption of the current protests.

Desperation and anger are the sort of emotions evoked by Moustadraf’s stories. Her writing is very confrontational and sometimes difficult to digest, but she illustrates the grievances of Moroccan people, which have been chronically ignored for decades.

Meryem Alaoui: Straight from the Horse’s Mouth (published in French in 2018 and translated to English in 2020)

Meryem Alaoui’s debut is a hilarious novel about Jmiaa, a 34-year-old sex worker in Casablanca, reflecting on her life and struggles as she is about to embark on a life-changing adventure.

Jmiaa is a delightfully witty anti-heroine who grapples with the aftermath of her husband deserting her, leaving her to care for herself and their child, while living on the margins of society.

This novel, while being comedic and lighthearted, is also brutally honest in its depiction of gender inequality, class disparity, and violence.

This is fundamentally a story about poverty, the lack of employment, and the resilience to survive amidst hardship. Straight from the Horse’s Mouth humanises and gives a voice to Jmiaa and paints a colourful and relatable portrait of an otherwise invisible segment of the working class.

Leila Abouzeid: The Year of the Elephant (1979)

The Year of the Elephant is a seminal text in Moroccan postcolonial literature. The titular story of the collection is about a middle-aged woman who is suddenly divorced by her husband (of several decades) right after Moroccan independence, having joined him in the resistance and nationalist struggle for liberation.

She is disillusioned by post-colonial nation-building, sees only the new self-serving elites reaping the benefits of liberation. At the same time, she is left behind with nothing, a vulnerable woman at the mercy of people.

Abouzeid addresses the ills of patriarchal society without relying on a Western secular worldview; she writes a feminism rooted in Moroccan culture and Islamic practice, a uniquely Moroccan approach to the topic of gender inequality.

The male characters in the short stories in The Year of the Elephant are plagued with unemployment (as a result of illiteracy and lack of education, direct consequences of poverty), anger, and desperation, as they struggle to survive and provide for themselves and their families.

The disillusionment in the face of the postcolonial state’s inability to protect its most vulnerable subjects echoes the disillusionment of the Moroccan youth today, who are demanding dignity, less systemic neglect, and more investment in the future.

Ilham Essalih is a book reviewer, researcher, and Bookstagrammer based in London. She specialises in postcolonial literatures from the MENA region and diasporas

Follow her on Instagram: @ilhamreads