Interrogating Identity Politics in The Contemporary Moroccan Novel

This paper aims at examining the manifestations of postcolonial Moroccan `Self`-representation(s). Central is the image that Moroccan writers evince about Moroccan identity and culture. Four postcolonial Moroccan novels are analyzed to trace out the Moroccan ¿Self¿-portrayal by means of sketching out the multivocality inherent in these novels. Indeed, the linguistic variety in the choice of the novels is purposefully meant to delineate rhetorical similarities and differences in `Self`-representation. Moroccan `Self'-representation is characterized by ambivalent viewpoints. The study tries to answer the following questions: Is `Self`-representation possible? What does it really involve? How does it imbricate with power relations, gender, colonial epistemic violence, postcolonial inferiority complex , and post-independence disillusionment?