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Touria Oulehri

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Touria Oulehri
Born1962 (age 61–62)
Assoul, Morocco
Occupation
  • Novelist
  • academic

Touria Oulehri (born 1962) is a Moroccan novelist and academic. Her novels focus on the experiences and challenges faced by Moroccan women.

Life and career

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Oulehri was born in the village of Assoul, Morocco.[1] She attended secondary school in Meknès, followed by higher education in Fez and France.[1] She holds a degree in public law and a doctorate in French literature.[2]

She has worked as a teacher at the École Normale Supérieure in Meknès,[3] and as an academic of French literature.[2] She has published articles on the subject of literary criticism and authors of the 16th century.[2] She is one of a group of Francophone Moroccan women writers who began writing in the 1980s and 1990s, despite Moroccan literature having traditionally been a masculine field, and whose work is characterised by themes of feminism and socio-political concerns.[4][5]

Oulehri's first novel, La répudiée was published in 2001.[3] It is about an upper-class and cultured Moroccan woman unable to have children; her husband first encourages her to agree to a polygamous marriage and then abandons her when she refuses consent.[4][6] Oulehri draws comparisons between the destruction of the main character's life and the 1960 Agadir earthquake, yet the events also provide her with an opportunity to rebuild a better life.[4][7] The novel caused some controversy in Morocco for its depiction of a woman who seeks fulfilment from life without motherhood or a male partner.[8]

Feminist themes and women's experiences have continued to be features of her later novels;[9] for example, in Les Conspirateurs sont parmi nous (2006), the young main character has received no education about her body and is unsettled by menstruation as a result.[10] In 2019 her novel Aime-moi et je te tue was presented at the Casablanca International Book Fair.[1]

In a 2007 interview, Oulehri was asked for whom she and other Moroccan authors write, given low levels of literacy in the country. She responded, "nous écrivons pour nous-mêmes et personne d'autre" (we write for ourselves and no one else).[11]

Books

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  • La répudiée (Afrique-Orient, 2001)[1]
  • La Chambre des nuits blanches (Marsam, 2004)[1]
  • Les Conspirateurs sont parmi nous (Marsam, 2006)[1][12]
  • Laisse mon corps te dire (Marsam, 2016)[1]
  • Aime-moi et je te tue (Virgule, 2019)[1]

References

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  1. ^ a b c d e f g h "Touria Oulehri, une romancière "habitée" par la condition de la femme !". Africa Lifestyles (in French). 30 December 2019. Archived from the original on 16 April 2021. Retrieved 16 April 2021.
  2. ^ a b c "Journée Internationale de la femme". Maghress (in French). 7 March 2008. Retrieved 22 March 2024.
  3. ^ a b Oliveras, Carlota. "Touria Oulehri. La répudiée". Center Dona i Literatura (in Spanish). Universitat de Barcelona. Archived from the original on 23 September 2006.
  4. ^ a b c Khannous, Touria (2014). "Chapter 4. Writing in the Feminine: The Emerging Voices of Francophone Moroccan Women Writers". In Bratt, Kirstin Ruth; Elbousty, Youness M.; Stewart, Devin (eds.). Vitality And Dynamism: Interstitial Dialogues of Language, Politics, and Religion in Morocco's Literary Tradition (1st ed.). Amsterdam University Press. ISBN 9789087282134. Retrieved 23 March 2024.
  5. ^ Orlando, Valérie K. (September 2013). "Being-in-the-world: the Afropolitan Moroccan author's worldview in the new millennium". Journal of African Cultural Studies. 25 (3): 275–291. JSTOR 42005328. Retrieved 23 March 2024.
  6. ^ Belarbi, Mokhtar (3 March 2011). "Métamorphoses du corps féminin dans la littérature marocaine et japonaise". Sens Public (in French). Retrieved 22 March 2024.
  7. ^ Zoulagh, Latifa (2019). "Touria Oulehri: Du corps morcelé au corps reconstruit". Women in French Studies (in French). 27: 62–74. doi:10.1353/wfs.2019.0020. Retrieved 23 March 2024.
  8. ^ Segarra, Marta (2010). Nouvelles romancières francophones du Maghreb (in French). Karthala Editions. pp. 98–100. ISBN 9782811103224. Retrieved 23 March 2024.
  9. ^ "Ces artistes marocaines qui brillent par leurs talents". Libération (in French). 7 March 2020. Retrieved 23 March 2024.
  10. ^ El Kourri, Rachid (2018). "Le roman féminin au Maroc : un itinéraire de combattantes". Faits de Langue et société (in French) (3–4): 140. Retrieved 23 March 2024.
  11. ^ Orlando, Valérie K. (2009). "La Littérature-monde in the 'New Morocco': literary humanism for a global age". International Journal of Francophone Studies. 12 (2/3): 368. Retrieved 23 March 2024.
  12. ^ Touaf, Larbi; Boutkhil, Soumia (26 March 2009). The World as a Global Agora: Critical Perspectives on Public Space. Cambridge Scholars Publishing. pp. 88–102. ISBN 978-1-4438-0728-9.
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