Maghreb and Mashreq debate culture in Oujda
By the AFREEQUE newsroom, based on MAP
A literary meeting in Oujda focused on cultural ties between the Maghreb and Mashreq, with Arab writers and academics taking part. Moroccan poet Mohamed Bennis called for an analytical approach to these exchanges and defended the autonomy of Moroccan literature, according to MAP.
Cultural complementarity between the Maghreb and the Mashreq was at the centre of a literary meeting held on Saturday in Oujda as part of the sixth edition of the Maghreb Book Fair, ‘Letters of the Maghreb’, according to MAP. Arab writers and academics debated changes in Arab cultural geography and the role of literature in bringing the two regions closer together.
Moroccan poet and academic Mohamed Bennis called for emotional discourse on cultural relations between the Maghreb and the Mashreq to be replaced by an analytical approach. He said Moroccan literature had built its own identity and rejected its historical classification as being on the ‘margin’, in favour of an interpretation based on the relationship between ‘centre and periphery’, according to a statement to MAP.
Iraqi writer Mohsen Jassem Al-Moussawi, a professor at Columbia University, described the distinction between the Maghreb and Mashreq as a geographical division linked to the colonial legacy and economic disparities. He stressed the unity of the Arab language and culture, as well as exchanges between the literatures of the two regions, particularly in the novel.
