Interview: Meriyem Kokaina, Founder of Pan-African Blog ‘Au Pays Du Baobab’
“Reading a book is not just reading, there are a lot of things in the background of a book – there is the source, who wrote it, and in which context.”
- Meriyem Kokaina
Cassava Republic Press Editorial Workshop, 2024
Last year I had the pleasure of meeting Meriyem Kokaina during our participation in the Cassava Republic Press Editorial Workshop in Johannesburg, South Africa. Meriyem sat down with me one lazy Sunday afternoon to chat about her journey in the literary space. I believe people on the continent must work better at bridging linguistic and geographical barriers, hence I was really was excited to talk with someone who comes from Morocco.
Below are the highlights of our conversation:
TM: We often speak about “African Literature”, I feel [what is viewed as] “African literature” is focused on English-speaking countries. Coming from an English-speaking country one tends to have that bias. I’m interested to hear more about this dynamic and how literature functions in terms of culture and art in Morocco.
First of all, how did you start to love books?
MK: Usually people say they started to have a passion for literature because they used to read a lot when they were kids. That is definitely not my case, so I’m breaking this trend!
TM: You’re the first person I’ve interviewed to say this!
MK: Literature came into my life when I wanted to understand what being African meant for me. I was born and raised in Morocco, afterwards I studied in France. In France you’re often asked where you come from, you need to explain yourself and your identity. My first identity of course is Moroccan but I’m also mixed - my father comes from Mali.
© Au Pays Du Baobab
As this question came up a lot, I wondered how to better understand it. I met a journalist who told me to read ‘Mathématiques congolaises’ by In Koli Jean Bofane, to learn about the Democratic Republic of Congo. I read the book, fell in love with the story, learned so much about the DRC through the character-led experiences. I chose another African author to learn more about the story of Sundiata Keita: the historical creator of the Ancient Mali Empire. I saw through African literature a way to understand what Africa meant as an identity, as a geography, as a link between all Africans.
At the same time, I was reading geopolitical books, but they were mainly written by Western intellectuals. I was not always agreeing with what they were saying to me. It was really biased, especially when it came from French intellectuals. To me, there is still a bias between France and the former colonies in North and West Africa. I decided to stick to African authors. I kept reading, kept researching, but I never found a platform where I could find a list of African authors to learn and experience Africa. So I built it, I created my own platform: Au Pays Du Baobab.
TM: What is Au Pays Du Baobab?
MK: I named it (my platform) Au Pays Du Baobab (In The Country of the Baobab), after the sacred tree found in many countries. I didn’t want to name it “Afro-something” because to me ‘Afro’ means a lot and nothing at the same time, it was not precise enough for me. As I told you, my father is from Mali. When we went to our family village next to Ségou, there is a huge baobab [tree]. We had this tradition of going to the baobab and taking a picture. For me Mali was the country where you go back to yourself, back to your origins [through] a tradition of cultural connection. I had this strong image in my head and named it after this family tradition.
TM: It reflects the story-telling and passing down we have been thinking about during the (Cassava Republic Editorial) workshop. Tell me more about the platform.
MK: It’s a blog, a website. On social media I try to show what I do on the blog and build a community, which is really important when you want to promote something. I post book recommendations; pictures of me; explain a book in one minute. I try to have a catchy way to answer something that everybody's wondering about and link it to the to the current discussion in society. Also, I try to post quotes of African authors because we don't have them. I try not to make it elitist, I don't want to intellectualise. If you make it out as if it's just a story that people want to read - it works!
On the website I do little chronicles about books. I try to write the story of African countries from the beginning to present day, with a focus on economy, international relations, art, literature… I wanted people to learn their history. I try not to split it into pre-colonial and post-colonial. I use key moments in the country’s history – this breaks the timeline linking us to the western story/version of events. At this moment I’ve only done it for eight (8) countries because it takes a long time.
TM: I was about to say – how do you do your research? Because that sounds like a lot of work.
MK: I try to read books written by Africans, the source is really important to me. All that matters to me is the source. Because reading a book is not just reading, there are a lot of things in the background of a book – there is the source, who wrote it, in which context… I do the selection to have the story that for me is the most legitimate. I use the books, I read common histories, short stories, it can also sometimes be movies or documentaries. But I really like to stick to Africans telling the story so we can learn it together.
TM: Which country did you start with?
MK: I started with my own countries; Mali and Morocco. After I tried to cover countries from other parts, because the problem we have when we speak about “Africa” we are used to viewing it as one thing but it’s really diverse!
TM: Of course, it’s the most diverse continent in the world.
MK: Yes, so I didn’t just want to stick to Mali and Morocco. I tried for example to do Namibia, Ethiopia, Congo. Trying to move around the continent. Now I have eight (8). I started it in 2020, during lockdown when I had a lot of time to read, write, and do a lot of research. I really enjoyed the process. I spent my days and weekends in libraries. I had the most delightful time of my life.
TM: You’ve spoken about reading all these books, and conducting all this research. Where are you doing this? Explain to me what the situation is like in Morocco?
MK: I started the blog when I was in Paris, I moved back to Morocco a year and a half ago. In Paris it’s really easy to access books because you have libraries owned by the government. You can go to the public library and get a book for free – you have to give it after six weeks to two months, so you have time to read. People are used to reading books. There is an environment where you can read. There are also book shops that specialise in African literature. Publishers that are really powerful were born in Paris for example Presence Africaine. There is no Presence Africaine in Africa because there is a problem with sustainability to print and distribute on the continent.
“You start reading books then you start to discover an industry that is really challenging and complicated.”
TM: Is information easy to access in Morocco, are there universities where you conduct your research?
MK: After I moved back to Morocco. I used bought a lot of books, so I have a private library. I do that because there are books in Morocco, but nothing around Africa generally speaking. I would say the book industry is somehow well developed, I wouldn’t compare it to Paris, but you have libraries, including public ones. For example La Bibliotheque Nationale where you have books by scholars, if you need to do high level research you will find what you need. But if you need to buy a book maybe you will not find it because Morocco is a country that is rooted in its own culture. Morocco is a country with a diverse identity: it’s linked to the Arab world, it’s linked to Europe, it’s linked to West Africa. So you will have a lot of books generally in Arabic covering the Arabic relationship with Europe. A part that is covering West Africa but it’s still small, or its Morocco within the African dynamic. Morocco is always somewhere in the stories told. You will never find books for African literature specifically.
If you like to read in Morocco it will be easy to access books. You have a lot of publishers, you can find inexpensive books. There is one publisher I really enjoy: Fennec Edition. They sell books that are between $2 -$8, so Moroccans can afford them. When you start selling books at $20 it can start getting a bit expensive for Moroccans. You see that Moroccan publishing houses are understanding their target market.
There are also a lot of book fairs in Morocco, the International Book Fair where publishers from all over the world come and present their books. Morocco is trying to give space and more visibility to literature on an international level. Sub-Saharan publishers attend, there are roundtables, they invite African artists to attend. There is a department dedicated to African Literature at the Royal Academy. In 2024 Wole Soyinka was in Morocco, I was invited there.
TM: It sounds like there are many activities happening.
MK: There is a movement happening towards Africa, Morocco is putting effort into cultural diplomacy through literature. I think in the coming years it will be more and more visible.
TM: You’ve mentioned that most books are written in Arabic. What other languages can you find books in?
MK: Arabic is the majority language. When it comes to the elites – you will find a lot of people reading French and English.
TM: Are there books written in indigenous languages? Is there a market for that, or is it mostly (confined to) textbooks for schools?
MK: Moroccans started to be linked to the Arab world in the 8th century, the Natives of Morocco are not Arabs they are Amazigh who are found in throughout North Africa. Tamazigh is spoken in the mountains in the east and the south starting in Marrakesh. For example in Marrakesh people speak both Arabic and Amazigh. In Rabat, people speak Arabic and French. So in terms of writing this is an interesting question because Tamazigh has newly been considered an official language in the last 10 years. People really fought to preserve it, so you now have Arabic and Tamazigh taught in school in some regions. If you go in the official papers or on the highway its written in Arabic and Tamazigh – but it’s not in all regions.
TM: What type of books and literature does Morocco produces? What are the themes, the stories? Which authors are popular?
MK: Moroccans are really sensitive to the social dynamics of the country; the social gap, pressure on women, economic barriers… Morocco is a country that shows multiple faces. It shows nice a developing country, which is true. But there is a big part of society having a hard time with progress, with inflation, with globalisation. There is a book called Le Pan Nu (The Naked Bread) by Mohamed Choukri, it speaks about a poor child in Assila (northern Morocco), the struggle of poverty, the weight of taboos. It’s a very conservative society but at the same time trying to be modern.
We are struggling too with women’s rights - women are writing a lot. Because the Moroccan woman is becoming progressively free, she is in a position where she’s being asked to be a lot - to be the perfect human being. But the patriarchy is still having an easy time in Morocco. These kinds of themes are usually prevalent. For example Fatema Mernissi is one of the biggest feminists in Morocco. She wrote a book about her childhood ‘Rêves de femmes: Une enfance au harem’ (‘Dreams: Tales of A Harem Girlhood’). Before in Morocco, in one house you could find multiple generations: the father, the uncle, all these men, and all their women in the same place. The father could have up to four wives, and women were not allowed to leave the house or have an education. The author tells the story about how she was raised amongst these women, how these women tried to entertain themselves, or have dreams. The only moment they could leave was when they went to the hammam once a week or month. Mernissi tells how her mother fought for her to have an education during the colonial times – it’s a true story. Her education allowed her to be the feminist we know today. It’s a nice way to enter the intimacy of traditional Moroccan families. Now we don’t have harems anymore but the book shows an authentic Moroccan family structure through the eyes of a feminist.
TM: Are there any clichés a Zimbabwean or Southern African audience needs to be aware of when approaching Moroccan literature?
MK: The topic that comes up a lot is : ‘Does Morocco consider itself as part of Africa?’. This is not only for Morocco but for the whole of North Africa.
TM: What do you think?
MK: Morocco is of course an African country. We should also consider the historical links Morocco has with the Arab world. It’s hard to ask Morocco to choose only to be an African country in how we describe Africa today. To me, we should consider Morocco and North Africans within African diversity.
TM: I think what you’re trying to say is: if we consider Africa to be diverse, lets appreciate the diversity of all countries because it’s not 100% the same everywhere. For instance, I can’t say Southern African identity is the same as East African identity. So we shouldn't try to homogenise
MK: It's the same dynamic. The only difference present in North Africa is we speak Arabic in reference to Islam. There is maybe also the skin colour. I want to emphasise that there are all shades of people living in Morocco. Not everyone is fair skinned, there are darker skinned people for example living in the South in Marrakesh. Not everyone is white. This is not true.
TM: Are there any books that touch on this diversity
MK: There are books that touch on this history between North Africa and the rest of Africa. There’s a new book called ‘Mater africa’ by Kenza Barrada. It talks about how for centuries West Africa and Morocco had connections; commercial, religious, cultural. People from West Africa come to a city in Morocco called Fez, to learn the Tijani way to practice Islam. In this book Barada interrogates the African part of Moroccan identity.
TM: How easy is it for Moroccans to access works translated into French or Arabic from other parts of the continent? I'm more interested about from Portuguese into French.
MK: No, there is nothing. Spanish you can have because the north of Morocco is a former Spanish colony. Because we don’t have natural links with Portugal there is no access to Portuguese literature. Translation is rather complicated, some publishing houses that publish the books in three languages; Arabic, French, and English
TM: Sad. Finding Portuguese literature from the continent translated into English is very difficult. This is really bad because our biggest border is with Moçambique – Angola is also in the region.
TM: Most of our best writers are being published outside Zimbabwe, is this the case in Morocco?
MK: No, the authors I talked about, were published and got famous in Morocco. Of course the authors are famous outside, like the Tahar Ben Jelloun, his career is in France. Or some Moroccan authors that talk about topics that would never have an audience in Morocco. Abdellah Taïa speaks about his homosexuality, this definitely cannot be in Morocco. These kind of authors would not have a career in Morocco but in France it works.
TM: I'm glad to hear this dynamic isn't influential in Morocco because I has killed what is left of the Zimbabwean market. Whereas in South Africa, yes it's not perfect, but South African stories are being published, they find their own market here.
MK: Because what makes a book really expensive is the production. So when you cannot produce in-house...
TM: It goes back to the economy, as you said you have to think, back to the business and economies of scale.
MK: This is sustainability. If the book is available, if there are bookshops, if there is promotion, media, people will read it. But if you struggle to find a book, how can you create a reading culture? It's impossible. It's really strongly linked. Everyone reads, Africans like it, this bias is a mistake and not true. It's a matter of availability. It's a matter of promotion. We have a culture of storytelling. We like stories. Everyone has a story to say that covers the diversity of what the society experiences.
A foreign publisher would like to put the link between his identity and yours. This is how he will be able to sell his story within his environment. You find in French-speaking African literature always something about migration, always something about struggling with African identity and it will be set in France. You always have these topics that are linked to France, these are the stories that France sells. Then there are really biased stereotypes. Because, if we're being honest with ourselves, we know that in our countries there are problems. But they feed a certain point of stereotype. So this is part of the business.
TM: It goes back to the promotion aspect. If I think about 'Things Fall Apart', I believe that is the most sold African story of all time. There is no white person in that story, it is set in a village in pre-colonial Nigeria.
MK: But that was a very specific time history. All colonial stories at that time were like that because it was new!
TM: I understand. I think we can make an intervention to say, ‘It’s just a story’. There is space to build a market, even to encourage foreign audiences to simply read a story. Just because you can't see yourself in the story doesn't mean that 1) it's not a good story, or 2) it's not a story that you can relate to. Because on the other end, we read Jane Austen or whatever. But it's about the power dynamic.
MK: We are in a good moment now, there is something about promoting the new narrative of Africa by Africans. People are open to it, this power balance maybe is being softened to a certain point. But we really need to work on promotion. Promotion brings the market. This is why I developed my social media.
TM: Lastly can you recommend one Moroccan book?
MK: I'm not sure there is a translation, its ‘Le poète de Safi’ (The Poet of Safi) by Mohamed Nedali. It's a story of a poet struggling to find an editor. It's a very humbling matter, very true to what happens in real life. It’s set in Safi - a small city we don't usually talk about in literature. You see all the dynamics of the current Moroccan society. There is a little love story, something about the religious weight on people. You know, as a Muslim country it's not always easy to criticise religion, but it does it doesn't cross into terrorism. So it's soft. There is a criticism also of the police. It's a nice book published in 2021 so it's pretty recent.
TM: That’s amazing! I think we’ll end the interview here. Thank you so much for your time Meriyem.
Written by - Tondi Mudambo
