“Mohamed Choukri (Arabic: محمد شكري, Amazigh: ⵎⵓⵃⴰⵎⵎⴻⴷ ⵛⵓⴽⵔⵉ) (15 July 1935 – 15 November 2003) was a Moroccan author and novelist who is best known for his internationally acclaimed autobiography For Bread Alone (al-Khubz al-Hafi), which was described by the American playwright Tennessee Williams as “”a true document of human desperation, shattering in its impact””.
Choukri was born in 1935 in Ayt Chiker (Ayt Chiker, hence his adopted family name: Choukri / Chikri), a small village in the Rif mountains in the Nador province, Morocco. He was raised in a very poor family. He ran away from his tyrannical father and became a homeless child living in the poor neighbourhoods of Tangier, surrounded by misery, prostitution, violence and drug abuse. At the age of 20, he decided to learn how to read and write and later became a schoolteacher. His family name Choukri is connected to the name Ayt Chiker which is the Amazigh tribe cluster he belonged to before fleeing hunger to Tangier. It is most likely that he adopted this name later in Tangier because in the rural Rif family names were rarely registered.
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For Bread Alone
د.ا4.97For Bread Alone , al-Khubz al-Hafi) is a controversial autobiographical work by Mohammed Choukri. It was written in Arabic in 1972 and translated into English by Paul Bowles in 1973.[1] In 1980, it was published in French as Le Pain Nu in a translation by Tahar Ben Jelloun. The novel has been translated into 39 foreign languages[2] and adapted into a French graphic novel by Abdelaziz Mouride [fr].[3]
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Madman of the Rose
د.ا3.55It is a novel that reflects the writer’s experience in searching for identity and meaning in a world full of challenges and pain, through a deep narration of characters and events.
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The Tent
د.ا4.26A book that depicts Bedouin life in its simplicity and struggles, shedding light on the values of family and traditions in the face of changes.
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ward & rammad (Roses and ashes)
د.ا4.26The Book of Roses and Ashes – Letters between Muhammad Shukri and Muhammad Barrada – the writer Muhammad Shukri
The first time I met Mohamed Choukri, when I met him during the summer vacation of 1972 on Avenue Pasteur in Tangier… I had read him texts in the magazine “Literature” and heard news full of exaggerations about his private life. We dated in the evening, and it struck me during our conversation, which lasted late that night, that Shoukry was far from the picture that fans paint of him: he was sober in his dialogue, rational in his arguments, bold in his arguments and criticism of what he reads. He was not drawn to the “myth” of his past, but was open to his present, living as close as possible to the complex reality accelerating in its transformations.
د.ا4.97