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
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
Included in
Comparative Literature Commons, French and Francophone Literature Commons, Near Eastern Languages and Societies Commons
Comments
Peer reviewed accepted manuscript.