MAGHREBIAN LITERATURE AND THE POLITICS OF EX(IN)CLUSION

Abstract

The identity of Maghrebian Literature has become an integral aspect of the politics of modern African Literature. Within this overall politics the literature from the Moghreb is often excluded from African literary canon due to its similar socio-cultural orientation with the Arab world. This paper explores the content and context of the Maghrebian Literature with a view to foregrounding its area of convergence in the specific contexts of ideology, themes and style with the other bodies of modern African Literature. It argues, in addition, that these factors that shape literary evolutions in the other parts of Africa also shape the Maghrebian Literature. These factors include colonialism, postcolonial situation and cultural experience. After an extensive survey on the shades of the argument on the status of Maghrebian Literature the paper concludes that critics from both sides of the division ought to begin to see this Literature as an integral part of modern African Literature instead of playing the political ostrich.