A publication concerned with letters from Moroccan immigrants

From Warraqa Bilal Press in Fez, the book “Migration Letters: Narratives of Absence/Double Presence” was recently published, which is a comprehensive collective work dealing with the personal correspondence of Moroccan immigrants residing abroad.

The book was coordinated by Professors Abdelkarim Marzouk, Abderrahim Al-Otari, Jamal Boutayeb and Yahya Amara, with an introduction by Abdallah Boussouf, Secretary-General of the Council of the Moroccan Community Abroad.

In addition to the introduction, the collective author includes 16 studies divided into two parts: The first is titled “Studies and Interpretations” and the second is labeled “Texts and Testimonies,” dealing with immigrants’ letters in their dimensions related to estrangement, memories, literature, politics, and philosophy…

In his introduction to the book, Abdullah Boussouf wrote: “The personal correspondence of immigrants is considered one of the most important texts worthy of study and analysis, given the information, feelings, memories, readings, and narratives it contains that fulfill, to a large extent, hidden and declared aspects of the dynamics of immigration and the preoccupations of immigrants.” Explaining that, “In every message, there is a lot of revelation, narration, metaphor, and symbol, and there are also a lot of texts, metaphors, signs, and puzzles that call for solution, response, and interaction.”

Professor Yahya Amara, one of the book’s coordinators, said in a statement to Hespress, “The book [رسائل الهجرة] I consider it, personally and objectively, one of the distinguished books that dealt with a complex topic that the Moroccan taste has been waiting for as a result of its presence in the national culture, especially among Moroccans living abroad.”

He added: “I decided to participate in an analytical study of the problem of the political message in African culture in the diaspora through the Paris Message, which was created by the numerous writer Mohamed Bahi, and followed by all readers of the Arab world and Africa of all categories and degrees, as it constituted a distinguished media event until that message/messages became a political reference.” Culturally and socially, for all those concerned with the question of the political culture that prevailed in the diaspora, especially in France, in the eighties and nineties of the twentieth century.”

Regarding the reason for choosing this study, Amara, who works as a professor at the Faculty of Arts and Human Sciences at Mohammed I University in Oujda, said: “This is due to my new interest in African culture, which more than ever needs to be concerned with its major questions and delve into its problems due to the presence of the African dimension in Moroccan identity.” In order to overcome the narrow view that was not friendly to everything African inside and outside Morocco.”

He explained that “Africa is culture, literature and art, and it is not just Africa of politics and economics,” highlighting that “the new Morocco gives great importance to such humanitarian, cognitive and aesthetic issues, the world has come to recognize their utmost necessity in the effective strategic communication of everything that is Moroccan-African.”

Professor Amara continued, “This study complements a previous study discussing African song in the diaspora, in addition to another study on its way to publication that talks about the African dimension in Moroccan values,” before concluding his statement to Hespress, saying: “The Paris message, published today in several parts, Worthy of research and study, based on the political, historical, cultural, social and cultural issues and dimensions. By talking about it, we decided to integrate it into Moroccan-African writing, which is characterized by overlap and integration.”