Sexualized Collaborations and the Politics of Ghostwriting in Franco-Arab Literature: From Paul Bowles to Tout le monde aime Mohamed
AbstractIn the last few decades, the landscape of Franco-Arab fiction has seen a great many authorship scandals, in which French non-Arab authors have impersonated Arabs and found publishing success. In this essay, I revisit these scandals while focusing on a recent “autobiographical” novel that raised suspicions of ghostwriting: 2011’s Tout le monde aime Mohamed (Everyone Loves Mohamed ) by Malik Kuzman. An impressionistic collage of homo-erotic encounters, its fleeting structure recalls that of Barthes’ Incidents, a series of social vignettes culled from the author’s time in Morocco. I explore the simultaneity of Barthes’ Death of the Author argument and the emergence of these authorship scandals in post-colonial Franco-Arab fiction, and suggest that it is not accidental. In a similar vein, I analyze how the heritage of literary collaborations between Europeans and North Africans, often eroticized, has informed authorship scandals in post-immigration France.
The Mystery of the Missing Mantle: The Poet as Wittol? (Ibn Quzmān's Zajal 20 )
This article subjects Ibn Quzmān's Zajal 20 to a critical analysis, showing that, like other Quzmānī poems, its thematic structure is chiastic. Insofar as structure and meaning are two fundamental and interrelated components in any given literary work, the poem's structure further leads us from its surface buffoonery into its deeper levels of significance. Zajal 20, which purports to be a panegyric, actually subverts that genre by breaking several of the rules of poetic composition prescribed by Arabic rhetoricians. Through his violation of these rules, the poet offers an ironic critique of certain corrupt legal practices prevalent in his day.
The Ascetical Meditative Literature of Renaissance Spain: An Alternative to Amadís, Elisa and Diana
During the two hundred years beginning with 1450 and running through 1650 there were roughly three thousand religious works published in Spain in Latin as well as in Spanish. These works were written for a variety of reasons and appeared in diverse forms. For example, some were theological tracts which were products of the ThomisticScholastic tradition. Others were catechetical in nature and a third category were the ascetical and mystical works belonging to the Platonic-Augustinian tradition (Monasterio 4-7). The regular or monastic orders benefited from the production of theological treatises written in Latin which enhanced the training of aspirants for entrance into their communities whereas catechetical literature expedited the religious education of the faithful.' The religious literature of Renaissance Spain, depending on whether it had catechetical, ascetical, meditative designs or resulted from the mystical experiences of religious reformers, produced different types of works: e.g., tratados, vidas, opfzsculos, abecedarios, guias espirituales, manuales, ejercicios espirituales and catecismos (Gutierrez 227-29). The religious literature of the period was in effect a Renaissance version of late Medieval Nominalism or it represented a form of Neo-Scholasticism; another class had definite Neo-Platonic qualities (Gonzailez 286-88). In addition to the training of monks, the explication of complex theological precepts, a vehicle for guidance in prayer and meditation or the rendering into human language of the mystical union, the religious prose also took the forms of Biblical exegeses and commentaries on Old and New Testament texts together with the various interpretations of the writings of the Church Fathers or of St. Thomas Aquinas. This study, however, will focus on certain works of an ascetical, devotional or meditative nature which proffered the reading public an alternative body of literature which could serve to counteract the influence of the secularizing effects of the chivalric and pastoral modes in vogue (Sanz Pascual 275). This ascetical meditative and devotional literature wielded influence both inside the Iberian peninsula as well as in other countries of Europe.2 Ascetical works (the ascetical process in prayer and meditation) comprise the purgative and illuminative stages which prepare the person meditating for the final stage of the via mystica, the unitive (Valbuena Prat 60415). They include works written in the vulgar tongue meant to expedite the spiritual edification of the layperson. These devotional treatises, spiritual guides and exercises together with the meditative manuals were written in Castilian instead of the traditional Latin of the Aristotelian-Scholastic-Thomistic tradition.3 The various members of the great religious orders and, in particular, the Augustinians and Franciscans, produced a significant number of these works. Writers such as Mal6n de Chaide, Luis de Granada, Alonso de Soria and Antonio de Guevara wrote a type of devotional literature that could "deleitar" in the spiritual sense as well as "ensefiar doctrina cristiana"; in other words, a type of literature that would maintain the reader's interest and at the same time enhance his spiritual and moral wellbeing.4 These devotional works were not meant to serve as catechetical manuals nor as orthodox, doctrinal exegeses; neither were they intended to be highly complex, speculative theological tracts. Indeed, a limited number