Somewhere between the Nahḍa and the Nadal: toward a rhizomatic cartography of Hispanophone Moroccan literature

Abstract

The great variety of Hispanophone Moroccan literature evades facile categorization and breaks down identity qualifiers. It exists, yet it refuses to be easily categorized: is it a Moroccan literature that just happens to be expressed in Spanish? Or is it a peripheral Spanish literature that has grown out of the historical proximity and connections between the Iberian Peninsula and the Maghreb? This long, shared history complicates a simple description of these works as “postcolonial literature,” and suggests what Deleuze and Guattari call a rhizomatic literary cartography. This project seeks to engage with these questions of literary identity in Hispanophone Moroccan literature in order to consider the competing factors contributing to this unique literary phenomenon. My thesis is that Hispanophone Moroccan literature must be understood as a rhizomatic cartography. If it is considered as a peripheral Spanish or postcolonial literature, we risk overlooking many of its valuable contributions to the Hispanophone literary canon.