Moroccan Publishing, Cultural Decolonization, and the Book Revolution: The Souffles Experience, 1966-1971
Episode 219
Moroccan Publishing, Cultural Decolonization, and the Book Revolution: The Souffles Experience, 1966-1971
During the 1960s and 1970s, Morocco was a center for the invention of cultural decolonization and a key site in the twentieth-century book revolution. A group of young poets, novelists, critics, painters, and photographers created a cluster of publications, whose centerpiece was the magazine Souffles, and linked their publishing projects to ideas about national cultural decolonization on a global scale. The magazines, paperbacks, chapbooks, and posters they made have loomed large in the landscapes of postcolonial francophone literature and Moroccan modernist art for nearly six decades. The Souffles story also highlights the key roles of print media and cultural institutions for mid-twentieth-century discussions about the end of empire. Important and underexplored primary sources relating to these publishing projects exist in the collections of Moroccan libraries and booksellers. In this episode, Alexander Baert Young, Ph.D. candidate in history at Johns Hopkins University and 2023 AIMS/TALIM fellow, presents research he completed in Morocco during June-July 2023 at the Bibliothèque Nationale du Royaume du Maroc, in the library of the Ecole des Sciences de l’Information, and at used book dealers in Rabat and Tangier.Alexander Baert Young is a historian whose work connects book history, African history, and French history. As a Ph.D. candidate in the history department at Johns Hopkins University, Young is currently researching and writing his dissertation, “Africa’s Book Revolution: Print Culture, Decolonization, and Development, 1954-1988,” a multi-site project that will tell the connected stories of African publishers, librarians, bibliographers, cultural development experts, and media theorists across Morocco, Tunisia, Cameroon, Senegal, France, and beyond. His research draws on published paperbacks, little magazines, book fair catalogues, media studies and library science scholarship, and bibliographies, as well as archives of nation-states, international organizations, publishing companies, libraries, and writers. Young’s work has received support from the American Institute for Maghrib Studies (including the Tangier American Legation Institute for Moroccan Studies and the Centre d’Etudes Maghrébines à Tunis), the Western Society for French History, and the Bourse Jeanne Marandon of the Société des Professeurs Français et Francophones d’Amérique. During June-July 2023, he conducted research in Morocco as an AIMS/TALIM fellow.
This episode was recorded on July 19, 2023, at the Tangier American Legation Institute for Moroccan Studies (TALIM).
Discover an other podcast by Alexander Baert Young: Episode 175: Tunisian Librarians and the Book History of African Decolonization, 1956-1988
Alexander Baert Young is a historian whose work connects book history, African history, and French history. As a Ph.D. candidate in the history department at Johns Hopkins University, Young is currently researching and writing his dissertation, “Africa’s Book Revolution: Print Culture, Decolonization, and Development, 1954-1988,” a multi-site project that will tell the connected stories of African publishers, librarians, bibliographers, cultural development experts, and media theorists across Morocco, Tunisia, Cameroon, Senegal, France, and beyond. His research draws on published paperbacks, little magazines, book fair catalogues, media studies and library science scholarship, and bibliographies, as well as archives of nation-states, international organizations, publishing companies, libraries, and writers. Young’s work has received support from the American Institute for Maghrib Studies (including the Tangier American Legation Institute for Moroccan Studies and the Centre d’Etudes Maghrébines à Tunis), the Western Society for French History, and the Bourse Jeanne Marandon of the Société des Professeurs Français et Francophones d’Amérique. During June-July 2023, he conducted research in Morocco as an AIMS/TALIM fellow.
This episode was recorded on July 19, 2023, at the Tangier American Legation Institute for Moroccan Studies (TALIM).
Discover an other podcast by Alexander Baert Young: Episode 175: Tunisian Librarians and the Book History of African Decolonization, 1956-1988
Recorded and edited by: Abdelbaar Mounadi Idrissi, Outreach Director at the Tangier American Legation Institute for Moroccan Studies (TALIM).
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Recorded and edited by: Abdelbaar Mounadi Idrissi, Outreach Director at the Tangier American Legation Institute for Moroccan Studies (TALIM).
Suggested Bibliography
Bush, Ruth. (2016). Publishing Africa in French: Literary Institutions and Decolonization, 1945-1967. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press.
Cohen, Anouk.(2016). Fabriquer le livre au Maroc. Paris: Editions Karthala.
Harrison, Olivia. (2015). Transcolonial Maghreb: Imagining Palestine in the Era of Decolonization. Redwood City: Stanford University Press.
Heckman, Alma Rachel. (2020). The Sultan’s Communists: Moroccan Jews and the Politics of Belonging. Redwood City: Stanford University Press.
Houssais, Maud, and Fatima-Zahra Lakrissa, eds. C.A.S.A. — Casablanca Art School Archives. Paris: Zamân Books & Curating, forthcoming.
(2013). L’Atelier, itinéraire d’une galerie – 1971-1991. Rabat: Kulte Center for Contemporary Art.
Le Roux, Beth. “Book History in the African World: The State of the Discipline.” Book History vol. 15 (2012): 248-300.
Rahmani, Zahia, 2021. ed. Sismographie des luttes, vol. 1, “Epicentres,” and vol. 2, “Répliques.” Paris: Institut National d’Histoire de l’Art/Nouvelles Editions Place.
Rahmani, Zahia, Esteban Sánchez Oeconomo, Antoine Courtin, and Federico Nurra. (2020). “Portail mondial des revues.” Institut National d’Histoire de l’Art, https://sismo.inha.fr/s/fr/.
Rousseau, Dominic. (2019). Rachel Muyal : La mémoire d’une tangéroise. Casablanca: Editions La Croisée des Chemins,.
Sefrioui, Kenza. (2014). La revue Souffles, 1966-1973: Espoirs de révolution culturelle au Maroc. 2nd ed. Preface by Abdellatif Laâbi. Casablanca: Editions du Sirocco.
Shepard, Todd. “Challenging Censorship: European Publishers During the Algerian Revolution.” The Funambulist, no. 22 (March-April 2019): 18-23.
Shepard, Todd. “Comment disséminer les leçons algériennes ? Nils Anderson et la naissance du ‘Tiers-mondisme’ 1957-1969.” Maghrib in Past & Present podcast, Centre d’Études Maghrébines en Algérie and Centre de Recherche en Anthropologie Sociale et Culturelle, 31 January 2023, https://www.themaghribpodcast.com/2023/03/comment-disseminer-les-lecons.html.
Tenkoul, Abderrahman. (1981). “Le mouvement poétique et intellectuel de la revue « Souffles ».” Thèse de 3e cycle, Université de Provence.
Tolan-Szkilnik, Paraska. (2023). Maghreb Noir: The Militant-Artists of North Africa and the Struggle for a Pan-African, Postcolonial Future. Redwood City: Stanford University Press.
(2016). Une saison ardente : Souffles, cinquante ans après. Casablanca: Editions du Sirocco/Fondation Laâbi pour la Culture,.
Zhiri, Najiba. (1979). “Littérature marocaine de langue française : Introduction générale et étude bibliographique.” Mémoire, Diplome d’informatiste spécialisé, Ecole des Sciences de l’Information (Rabat).
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Slides
Slide 1: Detail of table of contents of Confluent, no. 5 (February 1960). Purchased from Abdallah El Ghouari, Bouquiniste Chella, Rabat, July 2023.
Slide 2: Front cover of Abdellatif Laâbi, Race : Itinéraire oral, Complément Souffles Atlantes no. 2 (Tanger: Editions Marocaines et Internationales, November 1967), designed by Mohamed Melehi. Purchased from a bookseller on rue Souika, Rabat, June 2023.
Slide 3: Front cover of Tahar Benjelloun, Hommes sous linceul de silence, Casablanca: éditions atlantes. 
Slide 4: Front cover of Toni A. Maraini, Message d’une Migration
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