Description: Mohammed Khaïr-Eddine (1941–1995), Abdelkébir Khatibi (1938–2009), and Abdellatif Laâbi (1942–) are three of the most important francophone Moroccan writers to have emerged in the 1960s. Belonging to the Souffles generation, named after the journal of culture and politics founded in 1966, they played a major role in cultural decolonization and the development of Moroccan literature. Nostalgic Rebels examines their works and legacy through the dual lenses of revolt and nostalgia. By weaving together comparative close readings of their writings with an analysis of the broader historical and political context in Morocco, the book demonstrates that these writers have used revolt and nostalgia to address state-sponsored violence, grapple with uncertainties about the writing process, and advance or revitalize their political and aesthetic projects. In doing so, this study traces a literary genealogy of political resistance, aesthetic subversion, and nostalgic reconstruction in postcolonial Morocco, while offering a nuanced historical perspective that is closely attuned to the specificities of Moroccan postcoloniality and sensitive to individual trajectories and experiences. The book covers a wide range of literary genres, including poetry, theater, prose fiction, and autobiography, all analyzed through a distinctively Moroccan historical and cultural lens, providing new insights into Moroccan literature and the theories of revolt and nostalgia.
Bio: Khalid Lyamlahy is Assistant Professor of French and Francophone Studies at the University of Chicago where he teaches North African literature. He is the author of Nostalgic Rebels: Politics, Aesthetics, and Selfhood in Postcolonial Morocco (Liverpool University Press, 2025). His scholarship has appeared in PMLA, Research in African Literature, The Journal of North African Studies, Nottingham French Studies, and the Irish Journal of French Studies, among other journals. He coedited, with Jane Hiddleston, Abdelkébir Khatibi: Postcolonialism, Transnationalism, and Culture in the Maghreb and Beyond (Liverpool University Press, 2020) and translated Felwine Sarr’s Habiter le monde: essai de politique relationnelle into Arabic (Kulte Editions, 2022). He also published, with Rym Khene, a chapbook of poetry and photography, J'ai rencontré un cheval de mer (Editions La place, 2022). He is the author of two novels, Un roman étranger (2017) and Évocation d’un mémorial à Venise (2023), both published by Présence Africaine in Paris. His second novel, awarded the Prix Éthiophile for the best francophone literary work from Africa, the Caribbean, and the Indian Ocean and an honorable mention from the Prix des Cinq Continents de la Francophonie, was translated into English, Romanian, and Arabic.