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Year of the Elephant: A Moroccan Woman's Journey Toward Independence

Year of the Elephant by Leila Abouzeid, translated by Barbara Parmenter, is dedicated to Moroccans who risked their lives for their country without expecting reward.

Preface

The translator expresses gratitude to Elizabeth Fernea for initiating the English edition and reviewing the translation. Thanks also to Barbara Parmenter for her skillful translation and to Annes McCann-Baker for her editorial work. The book was serialized in Al Mithag newspaper in Rabat in 1983 and published in Morocco in 1984.

The stories in the book are based on real events and characters, aiming to evoke the same feelings in readers that the author experienced in real life. The author disclaims creation of the stories, asserting they are simply told as they are, and Morocco is full of untold stories.

Introduction by Elizabeth Warnock Fernea

The publication of Leila Abouzeid’s novella, The Year of the Elephant: A Moroccan Woman's Journey toward Independence, and her short stories is a significant event in cross-cultural literary history. It's the first novel by a Moroccan woman translated from Arabic to English and one of the first works by any Moroccan writer translated from Arabic to English.

Modern Moroccan literature gained international recognition with Tahar Ben Jelloun's Prix Goncourt for La Nuit Sacrée, though he writes in French, a trend among North African writers until recently. Len Ortzen's North African Writing (1970) focused on French-language writers, including Moroccans Driss Chraibi and Ahmed Sefroui, and Algerian Assia Djebar.

Ben Jelloun's earlier novel, The Sand Child, explores gender roles in Arab society. The Sacred Night deals with freedom, protest, and the search for liberation from societal roles and hypocrisy in Morocco.

Abouzeid's novel, set in the early 1980s, shares themes with these works but focuses on a working-class woman's experience during Morocco's struggle for independence and its aftermath. Her style is more immediate and ironic compared to the dreamlike and cynical tone in Ben Jelloun’s books.

Leila Abouzeid's choice to write in Arabic is a conscious decision for political and personal reasons. Born in 1950, she was part of the generation that came of age after Morocco's independence in 1956. Her novel addresses three interconnected issues: history, national language, and feminism.

Morocco's colonial experience is unique, as it was never part of the Ottoman Empire. The country consisted of independent units, with the cities under central government control (bled el-makhzen) and the tribes operating independently (bled el-siba). These tribes gave annual allegiance (bayaa) to the Sultan. The French conquest of Morocco began later and lasted longer than in Algeria.

Western colonial rule is considered by historians to have begun in 1798, when Napoleon invaded Egypt. France started settling in Algeria in 1830, but Morocco continued to support Algerian resistance. This led to French retaliation, subduing the Moroccan army in 1844. Spain seized Tetouan in 1860. The Protectorate was established in 1912 but Moroccan resistance never stopped.

The Rif revolt, led by Abd el-Krim Khattabi in 1921, challenged Spanish and French rule and inspired the Islamic world. Abd el-Krim's revolt raised hopes in the Islamic world for successful opposition to European powers.

In 1946, Abd el-Krim escaped from Reunion and settled in Cairo, leading the North African Defense League until his death in 1963. Year of the Elephant focuses on the final stage of Morocco's independence battle, which began in 1943 with the meeting between President Roosevelt and Sultan Sidi Mohammed ben Youssef.

Leila Abouzeid dedicates her book to the Moroccans who risked their lives for their country. The Sultan, who became Mohammed V, was exiled by the French and became a national hero, unlike the Egyptian royal family, so the Moroccans joined the resistance. Zahra, the protagonist, explains that the Sultan’s exile wrapped him in a sacred cloak. Historic events form the backdrop for the narrative, which explores the protagonist's childhood, marriage, involvement in the underground movement, divorce, and re-evaluation of independence.

The 1952 Casablanca Massacre is seen as a turning point in the conflict, leading to increased support for the nationalists. The author connects the Moroccan struggle to an important battle in early Islam, the “Year of the Elephant,” where Mecca was saved by ordinary elements, like flocks of birds, which defeated a mighty army.

Abouzeid gives faces and names to ordinary people like blacksmiths and housewives who contributed to the war effort. The March 2, 1956, declaration granting Moroccan independence is not mentioned, but instead, captures the King's triumphant return to Morocco.

He delivered a speech in Arabic, the national language that had been relegated to second-class status during the colonial protectorate. The French language had become the language of commerce, education, and power. Modern Moroccan literature was initially written in French by men, however, the first Moroccan novel was written in Arabic.

The Arabicization of the educational system became a primary goal, but faced challenges due to a lack of Arabic-trained teachers and resources. The Istiqlal Party had promised free education to all Moroccan citizens. There were very few Morrocans enrolled in class in 1955, but the government restored Arabic as the nation's official language.

Ahmed Slami, an influential member of the Istiglal Party, argued for bilingualism to give young Moroccans a wider opening onto the world; Leila Abouzeid learned both French and Arabic but chose to write in Arabic to reach a wider Arabo-Islamic audience. The issue of language use is also related to the role and place of women in Moroccan society. Although a few women received a classical education in Arabic in the Middle Ages, they were always in the minority. Today, modern standard Arabic is used in the media and newspapers across the Arab world.

Leila Abouzeid writes in modern standard literary Arabic, but her dialogue is written in a modified vernacular. Her style has been described as a new mosaic of expression blending the old and new worlds. The novella Year of the Elephant attracted many readers through its serialization in Al Mithaq al Watani, a Rabat-based newspaper.

The Year of the Elephant is a new kind of novella, utilizing a new kind of language for a woman in a new independent Morocco. The novella raises questions about feminism, equal rights, and the role of religion in social change. Western feminism is defined as a movement granting equal rights to women and men. However, is it not Eurocentric to put forward the lives of western women as the only democratic, just and forward-looking model?

The novel begins with Zahra's divorce. Zahra is faced with a bleak future. She returns to her hometown to visit the religious leader of the local shrine. She has been divorced because she is too traditional, not independent. But Zahra's plight is the same as that of a woman in any society who is divorced, illiterate, and without economic resources. She must find a way to earn her living, a place to live, a reason to live.

Zahra's life as a small-town daughter, a guerilla fighter, and a housewife has not given her any experience she can use in the marketplace. By the end of the novel, Zahra has built a new independence within herself, and lost her earlier bitterness and hostility. She has a reality constituted of work, faith, and other things that are not so important.

The novella forces us to ask difficult questions about feminism. What is the relationship between women's political and economic activity and women's independence? What about the relationship of the woman to her kin group? What are the events that force a woman to a new kind of consciousness, a desire for change? What is the role of religion in such change? The answer to the last question must be both yes and no. Zahra becomes an independent, self-sufficient woman, but she is not a Western woman, but a Moroccan woman, a Muslim woman who finds comfort in her religious faith. It illuminates Zahra's independence and the problems associated with national independence. One woman's experience becomes a metaphor for society. This model goes less with Western ideas of individualism than it does with Middle Eastern ideas of the value of the group.

Year of the Elephant offers insights into the specific situation of Moroccan women. As the first novel by a Moroccan woman written in Arabic to be translated into English, it suggests new directions within Moroccan literature, the increasing choice of Arabic over French in national writing