As the title of the talk reads, translating Morocco was the topic of today’s talk. The author Foud Laroui spoke about his book The Curious Case of Dassoukine’s Trousers which is being translated from French to English by Emma Ramadan, and the reason it was written in French as a Moroccan writer as opposed to Arabic (the official language of Morocco). The easiest and most coherent explanation he gave for not writing in Arabic was “a Catholic person would not read or write in Latin as nobody would understand what they were talking about”, if he wrote in Classical Arabic nobody would understand, as very few read or write in classical Arabic in Morocco. Although French is a foreign language to him, it is an inherited language to Moroccans, and if not all, most understand French. During the talk Laroui brought up an important topic which directly addresses an identification issue he faced, “Moroccans do not have a language where they feel at home”, this being said I’d go a step further by rewording the talk as, ‘Translating Moroccan, from a language to a way of life’ as the title does not address why a country would need to be translated.

Although the author is more than twice my age he addresses issues such as reality, identification and intersectionality which many people who are immigrants and live in metropolitan cities experience as their reality including myself. Being second generation British and on top of this a New York implant, I face constant identification issues but also intersectionality (the idea of overlapping identities and living in-between places without having a comfort zone) on a daily basis. Laroui has many identities, as being second generation Algerian, born and raised in Morocco, encouraged by his father to speak French from a young age (forcing the rest of his family to also speak french to communicate), French educated in Morocco, relocated to Paris, currently residing in Amsterdam, and later in life realized he had lost his Arabic roots and so relearned Arabic. During the talk he explains how he came to settling with Holland over Paris or Morocco, he explained that he felt a foreigner in Paris and no matter how good of the language he spoke he would always be considered as the ‘Muslim immigrant’ despite never stepping foot into a mosque his entire life and speaking better French than most French people themselves. He has settled with Amsterdam because in my own words it is a ‘happy medium’, literally no questions asked about his identification. It sounded as if he liked the idea of blending in and from the sounds of it, he is accepted.

The most interesting question asked during the talk was addressed to Laroui himself, the question asked was lengthy and was spoken in French as the lady asking could not speak English very well. The question was answered as an explanation explaining a Mexican tv show shown on Moroccan TV. The TV show was originally dubbed in classical Arabic as the producers did not know what the politically correct language should be. Shortly after realizing no-one could understand they dubbed it into Moroccan Arabic, which was also a problem especially for Islamic Moroccans as it gave Arabic women a reason to feel liberated.
His summary of the show and it’s language issues better explains why he writes in French as a Moroccan writer.

– Sarah Boateng