Mohamed Said Raihani

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Mohamed Saïd Raïhani

Mohamed Saïd Raïhani (in Arabic: محمد سعيد الريحاني) is a Moroccan translator, novelist and short-story writer born on December 23, 1968 in Ksar el Kebir, north of Morocco. He is a trilingual writer (writing in Arabic, French and English), author of seven works in fields of literary fiction and criticism and a member of Moroccan Writers’ Union.^[1]

He is the founder of Neo-experimental literature, a movement recently inaugurated in modern Arabic literature (known in Arabic as المدرسة الحائية).

Bibliography

Childhood and early attractions towards arts and literature

Mohamed Saïd Raïhani was born on Monday December 23, 1968 in Ksar el Kebir (Morocco) where he got his primary and secondary schooling before going to Tetouan north of Morocco to carry on his university studies in English literature.

In his early life, he was fond of plastic arts but as he could not access Fine Arts School in Tetouan, 130 kilometers away from his hometown, since he was not yet fifteen years old, he shifted to literature, at the age of sixteen.

When he was sixteen years old, he tried writing his autobiography in French. Yet, on joining the university, he began writing short plays in English, being at that time a great fan of the Irish famous playwright George Bernard Shaw.

He also tried short story writing as he was fascinated by Ernest Hemingway’s writings. However, right after his university studies, he joined the sector of National Education as a teacher. on the literary plane, he shifted right away from writing in English into writing in Arabic, the language of his daily life and his deepest dreams.He, however, kept his love for short story that dates back to his childhood.

In fact, when he was a little boy, a lady who was a friend of his mother’s used to visit them every afternoon to tell them wonderful stories that were nothing but the "Arabian Nights". To this magic story-teller, he did a very special tribute in the first chapter of his "photo-autobiography" entitled "When Photo Talks".^[2]

This lady has kindled his passion for fiction since his very early childhood, enabling him master the craft of telling stories before even learning the literary writing techniques.

First steps towards fictive writing

As far as writing is concerned, Mohamed Saïd Raïhani admits being very grateful to “Composition”, a period he used to like most in the elementary school years. In periods of “Composition”, he felt fully free to write as he pleased and, gradually, he found out his growing inclination towards literary writing. However, reading books of great writers set his eyes wide open on worldwide literature.

His early readings were guided by nightly television series he used to watch every night. Thus, «Les Misérables» by Victor Hugo was perhaps his first French-speaking book that he may have chosen with his own hands at the age of thirteen. Thus, late at night,he used to read on paper the same episodes of the series he had watched on TV in the early eighties.

Early narrative texts

"In Love" and "Open, Sesame!" are Mohamed Saïd Raïhani’s first short stories written by the end of 1991 when he was 23 years old. "In Love" was not published until fifteen years later. However, "Open, Sesame!", was published on May 9, 1994 on one of the greatest literary Annexes in the 1990s Morocco, "Bayan Al Yawm Al-Thaqafi”.

The central theme in "Open, Sesame!" is repeated several times in Mohamed Saïd Raïhani’s early short stories: Flood. "Open, Sesame!" remains “a short story which invests dream as a narrative technique in a journey from individual dream to the collective one”, wrote Moroccan writer Mohamed Aslim in his preface to Mohamed Saïd Raïhani’s first collection of short stories "Waiting For The Morning” published in 2003.

Literary Philosophy

In 2003, Mohamed Saïd Raïhani wrote a short story entitled "The Three Keys" (published in the collection "Season of Migration to all places", 2005). This short story "The Three Keys", contains his philosophy related to fiction writing. "The Three Keys" defends free expression, urges love of the written work and dreams of reaching the real reader.It is a desire to reconcile the text with its free wild nature:

"When Freedom, says Mohamed Saïd Raïhani in an interview with "Le Matin" a French-speaking daily newspaper, will be the direct background of fiction, Love the storyline and Dream the dominant form of narration, only then short story will have taken a wider step to emancipate itself from the present restrains. Yet, writers should realize that Immunity is not necessarily reserved to diplomates but it is also writers' and artists' as well. When writers will realize that and believe in it, they will meet Freedom and will write free texts where they can dream and love to the last dregs."

Frictions with the Authorities

After the notorious suicide bomb attacks in Casablanca on Friday May 16th 2003, Mohamed Saïd Raïhani published a manifesto entitled "From the Culture of Life to the Culture of Death" which cost him dearly as Moroccan authorities chose to punish him in his own office to avoid stirring further doubts in human-right circles.

From the following year, 2004, Mohamed Saïd Raïhani started a new tradition in Moroccan culture by publishing yearly the "October Manifestoes" which are all gathered in a book released at summer 2009 as "History of Manipulating Professional Contests in Morocco". In an open letter From Mohamed Saïd Raïhani to the Moroccan Minister of National and Higher Education, Professional Training and Scientific Research, Rabat / Morocco, on February 12th 2010, he wrote^[3]:

“Regarding professional contests, I published thereon, as your Excellency knows, a whole book entitled "History of Manipulating Professional Contests in Morocco” released in 2009. However, I am afraid that this very book should be at the source of this brand-new kind of sanctions that has been projected on me for all these seven years and that does not seem to resemble any of the ordinary sanctions that other writers throughout History have suffered either by having their books seized or confiscated or even burnt. The brand-new kind of sanctions which has been focused on me for all these years attempts cleverly to “circumvent” the real problem occurring originally in the “cultural” sphere away to the “professional” field, for fear of making a hero out of the writer.

This newly-coined sanction makes use of all the administrative tools available for taming and repressive goals but too far from the context and the circumstances that are at the origin of the real crisis triggered by my signing and circulating "October’s Yearly Manifestoes" which extended over five years, from 2004 to 2009, before been gathered in the above-mentioned book, "History of Manipulating Professional Contests in Morocco”. This new punitive invention aims, unfairly and unscrupulously, at barring the way before my professional career in order to dwarf me professionally, administratively and financially”.

Works

• The Singularity Will (A Semiotic Study on First-names) in 2001

• Waiting for the Morning (Short Stories) in 2003

• Thus Spoke Santa Lugar-Verde (Short Stories), Naji Naaman Prize-Winner in 2005

• The Season of Migration to Anywhere (Short Stories) in 2006

• The Three Keys: An Anthology of Moroccan New Short Story (In Three Volumes:2006-2007-2008)

• The History of Manipulating Professional Contests in Morocco (syndical manifestos) (2009)

• Death of the Author (Short Stories) in 2010

• Letters to Moroccan Minister of Education (2nd Volume of The History of Manipulating Professional Contests in Morocco, 2011)

• A Dialogue between Two Generations (Short Stories) in 2011 (A collection of short stories co-authored with Moroccan short-story writer Driss seghir)

References

1. ^ Bousselham M'hamdi, "Contemporary Writers & Thinkers of Ksar El Kebir", Tangiers: 1st Edition, 2008, page167
2. ^ Mohamed Saïd Raïhani interviewed by Kenza Alaoui , published on Moroccan daily newspaper «Le Matin», (in french), 25 august 2008, page8
3. ^ An open letter From Mohamed Saïd Raïhani to the Moroccan Minister of National and Higher Education, Professional Training and Scientific Research, Rabat / Morocco, on February 12th 2010

External links

• Mohamed Said Raihani's Site
• In Love, A Short Story By Mohamed Said Raihani
• Mohamed Said Raihani Interviewing Danish Poet Niels Hav
• An open letter From Mohamed Saïd Raïhani to the Moroccan Minister of National and Higher Education, Professional Training and Scientific Research, Rabat / Morocco, on February 12th 2010 (written in French)

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Name	Raihani, Mohamed Said
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Date of birth	1968
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