Le Défi des diaristes maghrébins: situations, contraintes et horizons de l’écriture journalière au Maghreb

Abstract

In Maghrebi literature, the diary remains a marginal genre and writers have an ambivalent relationship with diaristic writing. This article begins by identifying and studying four major situations of Maghrebi diaristic writing based on its relationship with fiction, history, politics and autobiography. A more focused study of the diaries of Mohammed Khaïr-Eddine, Abdelkébir Khatibi and Abdellatif Laâbi then sheds light on the constraints of diaristic practice. The diary, whether interrupted or diverted towards other forms of writing, is construed by the three Moroccan writers as hybrid and unstable, favouring the duplication of the ‘I’ and forming connections with the diarist’s œuvre. Driven by a complex and dynamic writing, the diary seems to tend toward the fragment that embodies both the uncertainty of the diarist and his quest for a literary work of which the diary could be the core, the margin or the horizon.