From the horse’s mouth
Through a close reading of Meryem Alaoui’s Goncourt-nominated debut novel, La Vérité sort de la bouche du cheval (2018), this article explores the performative and narrative expectations placed on Moroccan women writing in French, tracing multiple strategies of resistance to ‘origin’. A confessional...
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| Language: | English |
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Liverpool University Press
2022-12-01
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| Series: | Francosphères |
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| Online Access: | http://www.liverpooluniversitypress.co.uk/doi/10.3828/franc.2022.13 |
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| author | Keziah M. Poole |
| author_facet | Keziah M. Poole |
| author_sort | Keziah M. Poole |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Through a close reading of Meryem Alaoui’s Goncourt-nominated debut novel, La Vérité sort de la bouche du cheval (2018), this article explores the performative and narrative expectations placed on Moroccan women writing in French, tracing multiple strategies of resistance to ‘origin’. A confessional monologue written from the perspective of a Casablanca sex worker recruited to make a film about ‘la vraie vie’, La Vérité clearly (perhaps even consciously) caters to the metropolitan market’s desire for ‘authentic’ narratives of Muslim women’s marginality. Nonetheless, through a persistent ambiguation of ‘origin’ both inside and outside the text, Alaoui shines a revealing light on the commodification of marginal voices in the postcolonial market, and on the complicated dynamics of literary representation in France. Ultimately, the article argues that it is Alaoui’s inability to divorce her work from her supposed marginal identity that makes La Vérité such a telling endeavour, for it is precisely in the margins that, in the words of Homi Bhabha, ‘the body and the book lose their representational authority’. In her doomed quest for unmarked authorship, Alaoui reveals the extraordinary demands that are placed not only on the author but also on literature, and in doing so stages the impossibility of literary ‘origin’. This article was published open access under a CC BY licence: https://creativecommons.org/licences/by/4.0. |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj-art-7b1f8f048eef46669d52cee6958b0742 |
| institution | DOAJ |
| issn | 2046-3820 2046-3839 |
| language | English |
| publishDate | 2022-12-01 |
| publisher | Liverpool University Press |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Francosphères |
| spelling | doaj-art-7b1f8f048eef46669d52cee6958b07422025-08-20T03:13:25ZengLiverpool University PressFrancosphères2046-38202046-38392022-12-0111214716510.3828/franc.2022.13From the horse’s mouthKeziah M. Poole0University of Southern CaliforniaThrough a close reading of Meryem Alaoui’s Goncourt-nominated debut novel, La Vérité sort de la bouche du cheval (2018), this article explores the performative and narrative expectations placed on Moroccan women writing in French, tracing multiple strategies of resistance to ‘origin’. A confessional monologue written from the perspective of a Casablanca sex worker recruited to make a film about ‘la vraie vie’, La Vérité clearly (perhaps even consciously) caters to the metropolitan market’s desire for ‘authentic’ narratives of Muslim women’s marginality. Nonetheless, through a persistent ambiguation of ‘origin’ both inside and outside the text, Alaoui shines a revealing light on the commodification of marginal voices in the postcolonial market, and on the complicated dynamics of literary representation in France. Ultimately, the article argues that it is Alaoui’s inability to divorce her work from her supposed marginal identity that makes La Vérité such a telling endeavour, for it is precisely in the margins that, in the words of Homi Bhabha, ‘the body and the book lose their representational authority’. In her doomed quest for unmarked authorship, Alaoui reveals the extraordinary demands that are placed not only on the author but also on literature, and in doing so stages the impossibility of literary ‘origin’. This article was published open access under a CC BY licence: https://creativecommons.org/licences/by/4.0.http://www.liverpooluniversitypress.co.uk/doi/10.3828/franc.2022.13Meryem AlaouiMoroccan literatureMaghrebi literaturewomen writerspostcolonial identityauthorship |
| spellingShingle | Keziah M. Poole From the horse’s mouth Francosphères Meryem Alaoui Moroccan literature Maghrebi literature women writers postcolonial identity authorship |
| title | From the horse’s mouth |
| title_full | From the horse’s mouth |
| title_fullStr | From the horse’s mouth |
| title_full_unstemmed | From the horse’s mouth |
| title_short | From the horse’s mouth |
| title_sort | from the horse s mouth |
| topic | Meryem Alaoui Moroccan literature Maghrebi literature women writers postcolonial identity authorship |
| url | http://www.liverpooluniversitypress.co.uk/doi/10.3828/franc.2022.13 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT keziahmpoole fromthehorsesmouth |