New Publication byM-S Omri: “North Africa: An Introduction”

Mohamed-Salah Omri, “North Africa: An Introduction” in A Companion to African Literatures (ed. Olakunle George) (Hoboken N.J.: John Wiley and Sons, 2021)

This volume, edited by Olakunle George, brings together expert scholars, emerging voices and cross-continental perspectives to the study of modern African literatures. Divided into five sections, the first four focus on regions of the continent, whilst the fifth turns to newer lines of enquiry as well as conceptual and theoretical issues. The chapters deal with literatures in English, French, Portuguese, Arabic, Amharic, Tamazight, Yoruba, Swahili and beyond.

Omri’s essay, “North Africa: An Introduction” focuses on the development and proliferation of literature across Libya, Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco and Mauritania, with excurses into Egyptian literature and literary culture. Charting key critical issues concerning the formation and development of modern North African literature, as well as touching on the current state of North African literary community and future directions, both in literary production and academic inquiry, Omri’s introduction sets the ground-work for the following six chapter that each deal with different aspects of North African literary and visual culture.

Omri begins with nomenclature: how do we talk about North Africa? When we talk about North Africa or the Maghreb as an entity, and North African literature as a category of literary production, there is a homogenising and limiting aspect. The various states and peoples who inhabit the different lands between Egypt and Mauritania have had vastly different experiences of modernity, with different colonial apparatuses, different exposure to European and other African languages and literatures, different paths to independence and different developments post-independence. Yet, there remain aspects which bring the different countries of North Africa together. As Omri notes, “an account of literature in North Africa could be both rewarding and challenging. With so many shared features and rich histories, the challenge is to ground these literatures in their specific conditions of production and circulation.”

Turning his attention first to the institutions of literature across the different countries of North Africa, Omri then addresses questions of the vectors of literary traffic, multilingualism in North African literature and the various forms in which literature is produced, shining a light on the dominant, emergent and receding trends of literary production in the region. Across these sections, Omri traces both the broad similarities found across the region and also focuses in depth on state- or community-specific patterns of literary production; in particular, one of Omri’s main focal points is the interaction between different colonial and post-colonial state apparatuses with the development of literary production and literary culture. Describing modern North African literature as a site of multilingualism, Omri argues that the key concept of tarafud (confluence) is central to understanding how different influences, languages and cultures come together both in the region and in texts. Pointing the way to future avenues of research, Omri notes the emergence of new literary cultures, animated by the internet and the possibilities provided by technological advancements to gain a wider readership, to build literary community and to publish one’s own material. Bringing the various strands of this introduction to a close, Omri emphasises that “a multi‐vectorial approach to these literatures, sensitive to the diversity in sources and influences, can account for the diverse developments they have undergone, and the marked differences between them, most notably in relation to languages, styles, and modes of writing.”

You can purchase the book here and read Omri’s article online here.