The Ruthless Morocco in Brick Oussaid’s Mountains Forgotten by God

Abstract

ABSTRACT In her well-renowned essay, “Can the subaltern Speak?” Gayatri Spivak has called into question the agency of the subaltern to speak, especially in the postcolonial era. While Spivak answers her question in the negative, other writers (I take the case of Brick Oussaid’s Mountains Forgotten by God) have proven the contrary when they first chose to write about their life-stories and those of their own people. In this sense, this contribution addresses the question of the subaltern voice in Brick Oussaid’s autobiography Mountains Forgotten by God. It argues that Oussaid has managed to speak by adopting a postcolonial approach that does not seek to be entrapped in some discourse of creating binarisms, thereby blaming the other for the self’s misfortunes. Rather, oussaid’s approach relies on inviting self-criticism and exposing the flaws of the Moroccan modernization project, which has failed not just Oussaid’s people, but also a larger portion of Moroccans.