Tamazghan Literary Futures 

Interview with Ahmed Haddachi

Brahim El Guabli

Brahim El Guabli (BE): Hello Mr. Haddachi, I would like to thank you for taking the time to share your literary journey. Could you tell us about the sources of your literary inspiration?

Ahmed Haddachi (AH): Hello Professor El Guabli, I would like to thank you for the interest you have shown, as a researcher and Amazigh speaker, in the Amazigh language and culture, and for your interest in my work in Amazigh.

First, I must tell you that I have a scientific background. However, my passion for literature dates back to my early years in elementary school. In middle school, high school, and college, it only strengthened and grew. I am a constant reader. From this passion for reading a lot was born over time a passion for writing occasionally. But if we must seek the origin of my inspiration for Amazigh literature, it emanates from my love for my mother tongue and the duty, which I have made mine, to defend it through writing. My conviction that literature will greatly contribute to safeguarding my language also inspires me to continue devoting myself to it even more, especially in these times when, according to the UNESCO Interactive Atlas of the World's Languages ​​in Danger (2021), Tamazight is in the yellow zone, that is to say in danger of extinction.

BE: In addition to literature, you have also created a Tamazight dictionary. Generally, we find that many actors in the Amazigh field have to wear several hats at the same time. Is this versatility natural or is it the result of the marginalization of everything Amazigh?

AH : As far as I am concerned, this versatility, as you describe it, is dictated by the work action plan that I have set for myself to contribute to the defense of the language of my ancestors. I have a planned literary project. In my plan for its realization, saving the vocabulary of my mother tongue, Tamazight, or at least what remains of it in our time, is the first action to be taken. The other actions have made the presence of my output in the Amazigh field. Concerning the other actors, I do not have any referenced data. Therefore I cannot say anything about them.

BE: What are the major axes of your literary project in Tamazight? 

AH: My literary project in Tamazight is planned, with objectives to be achieved along four lines of work.

●      Working towards preserving what remains of the vocabulary of the Amazigh language through writing, maintaining it, and scientifically enriching it.

●      Fostering written Amazigh literature (poetry, novels, stories, etc.).

●      Recovering a portion of the oral literature of Tamazight as part of the transition of the Amazigh language from oral to written form and transcribing it in a literary style.

●      Promoting the heritage of Tamazight, contributing to the protection of its cultural heritage, both tangible and intangible.

To sum up, my literary project is focused on the defense of the Amazigh language, culture and identity, but also on the support of minorities whose vital elements are marginalized or in the process of being abandoned by the speakers of the language themselves. 

BE: You have published Aduku n udar azelmad. Could you tell us more about the plot and story of this book?

AH: To demonstrate what can be achieved in Tamazight, I decided, as part of my literary work, to produce this novel. Regarding its outline, I drew inspiration from two models within nature, which in my opinion, share some similarity in their structure. The first is the tree with its branches and leaves; the second, the river with its tributaries. Schematically, the architecture of the story in Aduku n w aḋar azlmaḋ n Ḣmad Awraġ resembles on the one hand a tree where, as we know but without seeing it, the sap circulates and maintains the link between its roots and its other components up to the veins of the leaves furthest from the trunk and the roots. On the other hand, it also resembles the whole made up of a river and its tributaries, where the furthest drop must travel from the watershed to the riverbed.

It is along these two lines that I organized the events in this 430-page novel, in which there are no fewer than 132 characters. How did an ordinary pair of makeshift shoes, which cannot be mass-produced (the two shoes are not the same size), come to involve so many characters in distant spaces, between Morocco and the USA, who do not know each other, nor have all met? The novelistic techniques, my imagination and the Amazigh language allowed me to set the plot (the intrigue in French or ulum in Tamazight) in such a way as to ensure the coherence and logic of this story, and a suspense captivating the reader's attention.

As you know, to write a story, basic elements come into play and at their head that of intriguing the reader to attract his curiosity, to excite him to bring him to enjoy reading it. In Aduku n w aḋar azlmaḋ n Ḣmad Awraġ, everything is carefully designed with this objective. The story begins with the unusual situation of a character with deformed feet (one foot longer than the other) introduced in the title, forced by the authorities to be part of a group to participate in a meeting in Casablanca. Upon his arrival, two thieves steal his shoes and thinking that they are worthless, they simply throw them in the boulevard. The one of the right foot, picked up by a garbage collector, passes through the public dump, then the roof of a house to end up buried, suspended between two walls, head down. That of the left foot is found by a young American archaeologist visiting Casablanca who sells it to the Museum of Clothing History in New York, where it is then exhibited.

The museum director, James Martin, surprised by the design, conducted scientific research on it. He had a diagram of the design drawn and wrote a book showcasing it. He sold it to a shoemaking firm in Chicago. The model spread worldwide, eventually becoming sold in a modern boutique located in front of the shoemaker who had made the pair stolen from Hamad Awraġ, and who continued to work in the same way without progress. Meanwhile, a love story was born between the young student Muḣa Amgun, from Amjgag, the last douar in the M’goun Valley in the High Atlas Mountains of Morocco, and the young student Liza Duglas, from Evergreen, a village in Colorado, USA, whom fate had propelled to both enroll at the University of Pittsburgh. Muḣa Amgun saw the shoes on the feet of Ḣmad Awraġ, whom he did not know, in Ouarzazate a week before they were stolen from him in 1993. Before leaving for abroad that same year, Muḣa Amgun met Ḣmad Awraġ by chance, and they became acquainted. The latter was wearing other shoes on his feet.

Muḣa Amgun saw the same shoe on Ḣmad Awraġ's left foot for the second time in the museum where it was exhibited with an indication stating that it was in Morocco that it had been found in 1993. He was terrified by the idea that Liza Duglas might have of him, seeing not the shoe, but the indication. Fortunately, Liza was lingering in front of a woman's necklace and had not yet seen the shoe. Muḣa Amgun then turned around, grabbed Liza Duglas's arm, and to her surprise, begged her to leave the museum immediately.

They left right away. Liza had understood nothing. The story, after this incident, focuses on highlighting many of Muḣa Amgun's valuable qualities, skills, and know-hows, including his tribe's famous dance, which he performed at a world dance festival in Cincinnati. It was after the success of this performance that Muḣa Amgun realized his errors of judgment, including that of the museum three years before, and set out to remedy them. He decided, to Liza Duglas's surprise, as it was not planned, to go directly from Cincinnati to New York. In front of the shoe, of which he took many photos, he shamelessly confided to her that he had worn this type of shoe to school. On a visit to Morocco, Muḣa Amgun goes to visit Ḣmad Awraġ and shows him the photos, in which the latter recognizes his shoe stolen in Casablanca. Muḣa Amgun and Liza Duglas go to the shoemaker in Errachidia and each have a pair of shoes made, which they wear without embarrassment. The story ends with a letter from Liza Duglas delivered to her husband Muḣa Amgun, as they leave the Pittsburgh airport after returning from Morocco. Messages, cultural comparisons, and a bit of history are not lacking in Aduku n w Aḋar azlmaḋ n Ḣmad Awraġ.

BE: How was it received?

AH: Written Amazigh literature, especially novels, is only emerging and the readership is still small. However, regarding the novel Aduku n w aḋar azlmaḋ n Ḣmad Awraġ, the feedback has been interesting. More than a quarter of the printed copies were sold, and probably meant to be read. I know a few readers who told me they have read it more than once, which is a good sign. Print media reported on it, including in an article published in the culture section of the weekly magazine TelQuel on November 3, 2022, under the title: “Why Ahmed Haddachi's latest novel in the Amazigh language deserves to be translated?.” This novel was also the subject of a roundtable discussion at the 2023 Moroccan book fair. A student worked on it for his Master's degree at Inalco in Paris for a narratological study. A doctoral thesis entitled “Emergence of Amazigh Neo-Literature, Amazigh Novel in Morocco: A Close-Reading Study of the Novels Aduku n w aḋar azlmaḋ n Ḣmad Awraġ and Tiḋmas by the novelist Ahmed Haddachi” is also registered at Inalco. I believe that both written Amazigh literature and readers of Amazigh novels can benefit from it.

BE: You recently published Tiḋmas. What is the subject of this novel, which you released in the midst of Covid?

AH: For the novel Tiḋmas, I wanted to draw attention to a side effect of Covid-19 that has gone unnoticed. The coronavirus pandemic has pushed many young girls in mountainous areas, in Morocco and elsewhere, to leave school against their will. Has anyone noticed? I would say, with a causal link, no. Tiḋmas, the first name of the main character in this novel, is a specimen of this category of young girls. Tiḋmas, who was only expecting to get married as her parents had dictated, ends up getting married two years after leaving school. The die is cast, one might say. As I am optimistic and positive in my approach as a novelist, in this story, no, fate wanted her to become something other than a housewife, who conceives, perpetuates the tradition as culture, mentalities and customs demand.

BE: You also wrote a French-Tamazight dictionary. How do you explain this dual interest in creating linguistic resources and literary production?

AH: The Dictionnaire de Tamazight : parler des Ayt Merghad (Ayt Yaflman), which I published in 2000, is a monolingual dictionary of Tamazight. Why did I undertake this work and for what purpose? In 1972, the idea came to me following a very ordinary exchange with my mother. After deep reflection, I came to the conclusion that the most urgent thing for the Amazigh language was to preserve what remained of its vocabulary. I then conducted a long field study that took a lot of time, and traveled the High and Middle Atlas to compile a body of work. It wasn't easy in many ways, but I managed to publish it in 2000. Mastering the use of more than 4,000 Amazigh lexies in various contexts had an impact on my own Amazigh language skills. This dictionary, the main focus of my project, as I told you, was a priority.

I gave it great attention and the time it needed. To my knowledge, it remains the only monolingual Amazigh dictionary. I believe its contribution, at least to Tamazight, is and will remain significant.

As for literature, my literary project is planned and carried out in stages. It is with this in mind that I published the poetry collection Tislitt n ku y ass (The Eternal Bride) in 2001. Wanting to prove, on the one hand, that the Tamazight language can be moved from orature to written literature, and on the other hand, to respond to those who belittled the status of this language, I published in 2002 the prose collection Memmi s n ifsti d awal (Child of Silence is Speech). I continued to be productive but for personal reasons, I only started publishing again in 2020 with In gr tiddi d w annli (Between the Waist and the Brain). It's a work on 16 tales centered on the hedgehog and the jackal, which took me seven years of research to collect the various oral versions of each of these tales. I then wrote a logical version in literary style, highlighting the moral conveyed by the narrative of each of these 16 tales.

Two years later, I published Aduku n w aḋar azlmaḋ n Ḣmad Awraġ, a story created with great imagination and care, to prove that Tamazight can earn its place in written literature and the novel genre. In 2023, with the publication of the novel Tiḋmas, I wanted to raise awareness about the plight of young girls in mountainous areas who were forced to abandon their studies with the pandemic. At the end of 2024, I published Yu! ttuġ ur a m nniġ.. (Grandma! I forgot to ask you..). It is a letter followed by four texts that I wrote in the early 1990s to raise awareness about the defense of the Amazigh language and culture. Other works are underway.

BE: How do you perceive the state of Amazigh literature today?

AH: It depends on what the talent of Amazigh writers, of which I am, will achieve, on the one hand, and on scientific research and literary criticism, on the other. For Amazigh writers, there's nothing to fear; their numbers are growing rapidly. In the quantity of works that are published, there will always be a trace of quality. Regarding scientific research, there is a growing interest in Amazigh literature; it certainly takes time. But for a critique of Amazigh literature, I think we'll have to wait a long time.

BE: Does the current academic field do justice to Amazigh literature?

AH: Despite its constraints, I am convinced that the academic field has not neglected Amazigh literature. Its greatest limitation, in my opinion, lies in the lack of human resources specialized in the field of research on Amazigh literature. Each language and culture have their own specificities, that's for sure. Regarding Amazigh literature, we do not yet have enough university professors specializing in Tamazight to lead research in Amazigh literature. There are very few Amazigh Studies programs, and fewer students who choose to be supervised in them. Furthermore, we need writers who publish works of Amazigh literature to target the research. But I remain very optimistic about this, it is only a matter of time. The progress that is beginning will grow over the years and its speed of growth will depend on the interest that its speakers have in the Amazigh language, its literature and its culture.

BE: One of the major questions facing us today is related to the state of translation from and into Tamazight. In your opinion, what role can translation play in the regeneration of the Amazigh language, and how can we create an Amazigh literary translation study?

AH: You are absolutely right to ask this important question. Translation is doubly beneficial for any language. It is a continuous enrichment through the exchange of knowledge in various fields, including, of course, literature. Consequently, translating from other languages ​​into Tamazight will allow the latter to strengthen its lexical potential in specific fields (scientific, technical, academic, etc.). Translating from Tamazight into other languages ​​will allow us to share the thoughts, visions, and ideas of Amazigh authors with people who have little or no knowledge of the Amazigh language and its authors.

BE: What are you writing at the moment?

AH: I'm currently about to complete two novels. One of them, maybe both, is expected to be published this year (2025). At the request of many friends, I'm also working on a new version of my monolingual Tamazight dictionary.