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

By Leila Abouzeid. University of Texas, 1989. 103pp. List: $8.95; AET: $6.95 for one, $8.95 for two.

Reviewed by Greg Noakes

Contemporary Moroccan fiction is both vibrant and varied. It is a young literature, still in the process of testing boundaries and searching for its voice. At one end of the spectrum there are the consciously literary novels of authors working in French, including Driss Chraibi, Abdelhak Serhane and Tahar Ben Jelloun, winner of the prestigious Prix Goncourt.

At the other end there is the group of writers and storytellers like Mohammed Mrabet and Mohammed Choukri, whose works have been translated from Arabic into English by the American expatriate author Paul Bowles. Their narratives stem directly from Morocco's rich oral tradition, and indeed are often recorded and then transcribed rather than written. Apart from differences in language and methodology, Moroccan literature also encompasses a wide variety of aesthetics, from Ben Jelloun's dreamlike tales to the sharp and cynical styles of Chraibi and Serhane and the colorful depictions of the seedier side of life in Tangier and the Rif by Mrabet et al.

Yet there are also a number of common themes. Moroccan writers often employ the character of a storyteller or a first-person narrator to relate the events of their stories, and there has also been a tendency to use the struggle for Moroccan independence and its aftermath as a setting for these narratives.

This is the context in which Leila Abouzeid writes. Her Year of the Elephant also uses a first-person narrator and focuses on the period surrounding independence, but in many ways the work is unique among the growing body of Maghrebi literature in translation. Year of the Elephant is the first novel by a Moroccan woman to be translated from Arabic to English, and thus provides readers with a different vantage point from which to view North African life. Many of the events of Abouzeid's narrative (divorce, the struggle against poverty, interfamilial conflict, etc.) are common themes in contemporary Moroccan literature, but are presented here in a new perspective—that of a woman.

A New Perspective

The story is told from the point of view of Zahra, the protagonist. After independence, Zahra's husband, now rising through the ranks of government bureaucracy, no longer wishes to be married to his traditional wife, who does not speak French, eat with a fork, or sit with men.

Cast out of her husband's house and with no real family to fall back on, Zahra is forced to fend for herself with only the single room that is her inheritance and "whatever the law provides" from her husband. She returns to her home town and finds comfort and solace in religious values and in the person of an old and learned sheikh. Gradually she manages to construct an independent life for herself on her own terms. Within the framework of describing the divorce, Zahra relates episodes from her childhood, her marriage, and the struggle for independence, during which she assumed an activist role.

Abouzeid explores a number of themes throughout Zahra's story of traditional culture and modernism in conflict. Zahra questions society's valuation of women, while her hardships lead to a reappraisal of the meaning of independence at both the national and the individual levels, as well as the nature of societal change. Is "progress" always a good thing, and what toll does it exact in terms of traditional principles of morality and group solidarity? Zahra's story is one of steadfastness and faith in the face of adversity, and finally of acceptance of that adversity. Year of the Elephant, although a powerful statement, is not an exercise in rhetoric or ideological posturing, Quiet dignity and perseverence take the place of strident harangues. It is a tale of one woman's struggle against the inequalities and injustice of her situation: an intensely personal story of a small victory with large implications.

Year of the Elephant is the First novel by a Moroccan woman to be translated from Arabic to English.

At first glance, Zahra's narrative is an offhanded recounting of the events surrounding her divorce. The influence of the oral tradition here is unmistakable. Yet Abouzeid's novella is in reality carefully crafted, and is at the same time concise and richly colorful.

In contrast to the novella's immediate and relaxed style, the short stories also included in the volume are brief but powerful sketches, displaying a range of subtle humor, cold and detached observation, and ominous plots, all conveyed with an admirable economy of language that is one of the charms of Moroccan writing. The events of these stories are simple but profound, and Abouzeid often leaves the reader the task of explaining the character's motivations. While entertaining, these stories are not intended solely for entertainment's sake.

In addition to the novella and short stories, Year of the Elephant also includes a perceptive introduction by Elizabeth Fernea. She analyzes several facets of Abouzeid's work, particularly the importance of language as a source of identity, the meaning of the struggle for independence and the individual's place in that struggle, and the question of Abouzeid's feminism. Fernea also provides an historical context to the events of the novella and insight into Abouzeid's place within contemporary Moroccan fiction.

Year of the Elephant provides a perspective not often found in writing from and about Morocco. Abouzeid's text is deceptively simple, and readers will have plenty to ponder while savoring the book. One can only hope that this first novel by a Moroccan woman to be translated from Arabic to English is not the last.

Greg Noakes is the advertising director for the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs. Year of the Elephant and The Unmaking of Palestine are available from the AET Book Catalog.