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Interview with Moroccan writer Mohamed El Morabet
From April 11, 2020 until April 19, 2020
ONLINE
Casa Árabe’s Soundcloud channel.
In Spanish.
Listen to the interview we held with El Morabet about his work “An
Abandoned Plot” (originally published in Spanish as “Un solar
abandonado” by Sitara), in which we speak about the novel, his travels,
the Tamazight language, dual identities, the future and the soundtrack
which accompanies the book’s main character.
“Reading is like the virus: it is also contagious but kills no one.”
–Mohamed El Morabet
About “An Abandoned Plot”
Ismael Atta, an introverted, frustrated translator, travels from Madrid to Al Hoceima, the city where he was born, in the hope of getting to attend his grandmother’s burial. “An Abandoned Plot” tells this story which, amid the smoke from his cigarettes, mixes running away with wanting to start out a new life, reality with dreams, desires with duty, storytelling with the non-existent texts of an oral language.
“After the sip to test it, he added two spoonfuls of white sugar to the teapot and stirred with enthusiasm and gentle care to get them to dissolve. They dissolved slowly and inevitably, like the breaking of bonds with people throughout the lifetime of a traveler.”
“An Abandoned Plot” is a homecoming story. The dilemma over departing lived back in the day by an emigrant who moves to a new country and bids farewell to many things real and symbolic. Someone who suddenly returns, in what becomes an exciting journey to the past. Ismael Atta, a young Moroccan intellectual who has been living in Madrid for eight years, at the most traditional heart of that city between the neighborhoods of Lavapiés and La Latina, relives what it meant at the time to be torn apart by loss, doing so in a way not at all devoid of trauma, but rather oftentimes enveloped in a dreamlike shroud of fog which rocks him to sleep, as if he were at sea.
Mohamed El Morabet (Al Hoceima, Morocco, 1983)
With a bachelor’s degree in Political Science, Mohamed El Morabet regularly has his writings published in magazines and the cultural inserts of newspapers.
He has resided in Madrid since 2002. “An Abandoned Plot” is his first novel.
Listen to the interview here
Playlist with the novel’s soundtrack
–Mohamed El Morabet
About “An Abandoned Plot”
Ismael Atta, an introverted, frustrated translator, travels from Madrid to Al Hoceima, the city where he was born, in the hope of getting to attend his grandmother’s burial. “An Abandoned Plot” tells this story which, amid the smoke from his cigarettes, mixes running away with wanting to start out a new life, reality with dreams, desires with duty, storytelling with the non-existent texts of an oral language.
“After the sip to test it, he added two spoonfuls of white sugar to the teapot and stirred with enthusiasm and gentle care to get them to dissolve. They dissolved slowly and inevitably, like the breaking of bonds with people throughout the lifetime of a traveler.”
“An Abandoned Plot” is a homecoming story. The dilemma over departing lived back in the day by an emigrant who moves to a new country and bids farewell to many things real and symbolic. Someone who suddenly returns, in what becomes an exciting journey to the past. Ismael Atta, a young Moroccan intellectual who has been living in Madrid for eight years, at the most traditional heart of that city between the neighborhoods of Lavapiés and La Latina, relives what it meant at the time to be torn apart by loss, doing so in a way not at all devoid of trauma, but rather oftentimes enveloped in a dreamlike shroud of fog which rocks him to sleep, as if he were at sea.
Mercedes Monmany
Mohamed El Morabet (Al Hoceima, Morocco, 1983)
With a bachelor’s degree in Political Science, Mohamed El Morabet regularly has his writings published in magazines and the cultural inserts of newspapers.
He has resided in Madrid since 2002. “An Abandoned Plot” is his first novel.
Listen to the interview here
Playlist with the novel’s soundtrack
