Femmes-sujets : Étude sur les oeuvres de romancières marocaines francophones entre 1982 et 1999

Sammanfattning: This dissertation explores and analyses an emergent literature, namely the Moroccan francophone novel written by female authors. The novels selected were published between 1982 and 1999 in Morocco and in France. The criteria enumerated in the introduction of the dissertation yielded a corpus of 27 novels that hitherto have never been studied as a whole.The approach to this vast material has been twofold. Firstly, the social context has been considered, in order to bring to light the historical and political conditions which inevitably impact upon these authors. Since the period examined is from 1982 to 1999, the focus is upon the contemporary social and political situation. As part of this examination, the pertinent chapters in the Moroccan Moudawana (marriage code) are examined for their bearing on the legal situation of women. How important this is may be seen in the fact that through their characters and plots, a great many of these novels seem to call some of these laws into question.Secondly, and this is the main task of the thesis, these literary texts have been studied from a thematic perspective. Particularly frequent themes such as colonization and married life have been studied and divided in more detailed themes, such as cultural identity, marriage, sexuality and female emancipation. The sociological perspective has been maintained throughout the analysis, in order to show the connection between reality and fiction. It has been found that this connection is very close: the novels deal to a great extent with social questions.The analysis of the literary treatment of the two main themes and their constituents leads to the conclusion that colonisation and marriage are described in the same terms and as structurally similar experiences, both being characterised by hierarchy, force, and self-denial.It is furthermore argued that women’s writing in general and in Morocco in particular is a prise de pouvoir, and the thesis takes a considerable interest in the relation between writing and political power/action.