About the project
Introduction
For the past two years the British Council, Morocco has played host to the Moroccan Writers' Community. This was a group of dedicated Moroccan writers and scholars who have been writing in English and in collaboration with a variety of UK-based writers. All writers agreed that that they had been enriched by the experience. The UK writers also declared that they had been enormously impressed by the quality of writing from this culturally rich and diverse part of the world.
On the back of the success of the Community, it was decided to move the project to a larger level, encompassing Algeria and Tunisia as well as Morocco. The new project, with the title Medi-Café, was launched in Marrakesh on 23 February 2007. The launch brought together the writers from the Maghreb and UK writers and academics in a series of workshops and seminars, culminating in a project on 'Writing the City, Writing Marrakesh'.
Medi-Café specialises in three key areas - reportage, fiction and poetry - mentored by Dr Andrew Hussey, Professor Stephen Regan and Dr Kate Pullinger, each of whom are established writers as well as academics. Most exciting of all is the expectation that a new generation of writers from the Maghreb will emerge from this creative encounter.
Aims
The project is inspired by Edward Said's notion of 'imaginary frontiers'; this is a motif developed throughout Said's work as a notion which both destroys and rebuilds the notion of comparative literary aesthetics, finally working towards the possibility of a true 'world literature'. This is a crucial trope in the development in the emerging discipline of inter-cultural studies.
The specific aim of this project is therefore to bring together theoretical and practical aspects of this notion, and to investigate therefore what it means to be writing within and beyond cultural boundaries.
How it Works
Phase 1 of the project took the form of a series of workshops, readings and online mentoring sessions held in Morocco and Tunisia throughout 2006-2007.
Phase 2 co-ordinated activities in the Maghreb and Paris, culminating in a major conference at the University of London Institute in Paris (ULIP) in 2008 bringing together major scholars and writers from the Arab world, France, USA and the UK.
Phase 2 of the project (2008-9) will look to extend these activities to Algeria.
Writers based in the Maghreb were assigned to a group specialising in either poetry, fiction or non-fiction (journalism, history or critical writing). Over 12 months the writers worked on specific online assignments with a UK-based mentor who is a professional writer or academic, or both.
This work was peer reviewed by editors and scholars from Morocco, Tunisia and the UK, and is being published on this website.
Who is involved?
The Project team are :
Fatima Ahloulay (Project Manager, Rabat)
Imed Belkhodja (Project Co-ordinator, Tunisia)
Andrew Hussey (Literary Director, ULIP)
Stephen Regan (University of Durham)
Kate Pullinger (De Montfort University, Leicester)
Suzanne Joinson/Rachel Stevens (Literature Advisor, British Council, London)
Juliet Wragge-Morley (Web Manager, London)
