Gender representation in first wave Moroccan life writing: focus on Abdelmajid Benjelloun's autobiographical novel ‘In childhood’

The present paper is an attempt to describe and interpret women's experience as depicted in the first wave of modern Moroccan autobiographical literature. Adopting a feminist stance, this paper endeavours to explore latent and manifest representations of gender issues in Abdelmajid Benjelloun's autobiographical text fi al-tufula (originally published in 1949). By way of achieving its avowed aim, this paper rests upon two basic premises which have fundamentally altered the conception of autobiography within literary theory. First, it holds that autobiography has historically borne an explicitly masculine identity which has significantly impacted the depiction of women in autobiographical texts. Put differently, the present analysis veers towards emphasising the centrality of gender identity to the creation and interpretation of autobiographical statements. The second assumption on which this study is based is the utter rejection of the objectivity and unity to which (male-authored) autobiography purports. Alongside with other theoretical and literary schools, feminist critics have approached literary life-writing as the realm of subjectivity. From this vantage point, autobiography is to be regarded as the means through which personal, social, and cultural perspectives are voiced and negotiated. Deploying a manifold of critical and literary theories, the present paper serves to refute the traditional tendency to regard autobiography as the emblem of objectivity and neutrality. With this aim in view, the paper is a critical study of the work of a pioneering practitioner of the genre in Morocco, namely: Abdelmajid Benjelloun's Fi al-Tufula. It endeavours to explore gender representation, mainly the portrayal of women, in this work.