Moroccan Noir

Résumé du livre

In this work, I first explore why the police procedural has not emerged in Arabic outside of Morocco and how canonical Middle Eastern authors such as Nagib Mah[dotbelow]fuz[dotbelow] and Ghassan Kanafani incorporated elements of the genre into their novels without ever placing a sympathetic cop in the role of the protagonist. I next trace the emergence and development of the genre in Morocco, from 1961 until the present, treating the police short stories that were published in the government issued Majallat al-Shurt[dotbelow]a (Police Magazine) and the fiction of Muh[dotbelow]ammad ibn al-Tuhami and Ah[dotbelow]mad 'Abd al-Salam al-Baqqali. Although little police fiction appeared in Morocco during the 1970s and 80s, a period of grave human rights abuses known as the 'years of lead, ' the genre reemerged in 1997, thanks to the birth of crime journalism and the wide-scale political liberalization that accompanied the end of Hassan II's reign. Finally, I examine closely the works of Miludi H[dotbelow]amdushi and 'Abd al-Ilah al-Hamdushi (no relation), showing how their police procedurals dialogue strongly not only with the international form of the genre, but also with large scale changes in Moroccan society, such as the disastrous local effects of globalization, the vibrant new crime journalism, and profound human rights reform in the country.