Sexualized Collaborations and the Politics of Ghost-Writing in Franco-Arab Literature: From Paul Bowles to Tout le Monde Aime Mohamed

Authors

Mehammed Mack, Smith CollegeFollow

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2013

Publication Title

Journal of Arabic Literature

Abstract

In the last few decades, the landscape of Franco-Arab fiction has seen a great many authorship scandals, in which French non-Arab authors have impersonated Arabs and found publishing success. In this essay, I revisit these scandals while focusing on a recent “autobiographical” novel that raised suspicions of ghostwriting: 2011’s Tout le monde aime Mohamed (Everyone Loves Mohamed ) by Malik Kuzman. An impressionistic collage of homo-erotic encounters, its fleeting structure recalls that of Barthes’ Incidents, a series of social vignettes culled from the author’s time in Morocco. I explore the simultaneity of Barthes’ Death of the Author argument and the emergence of these authorship scandals in post-colonial Franco-Arab fiction, and suggest that it is not accidental. In a similar vein, I analyze how the heritage of literary collaborations between Europeans and North Africans, often eroticized, has informed authorship scandals in post-immigration France.

Keywords

Tangiers, sex tourism, North Africa, Barthes, Morocco, collaboration, homosexuality, Mohammed Choukri, literature, France, Paul Bowles

Volume

44

Issue

2

First Page

121

Last Page

144

DOI

10.1163/1570064x-12341263

ISSN

0085-2376

Rights

© Koiiinklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2013. Publisher's version available at http://booksandjournals.brillonline.com/content/journals/10.1163/1570064x-12341263

Comments

Peer reviewed accepted manuscript.

Recommended Citation

Mack, Mehammed, "Sexualized Collaborations and the Politics of Ghost-Writing in Franco-Arab Literature: From Paul Bowles to Tout le Monde Aime Mohamed" (2013). French Studies: Faculty Publications, Smith College, Northampton, MA.
https://scholarworks.smith.edu/frn_facpubs/2