Mohamed Mrabet
Encyclopedia
Mohammed Mrabet (8 March 1936 - ) is a Moroccan
author
artist
and storyteller
of Berber
heritage from the Ait Ouriaghel tribe in the Rif
region. Mrabet is mostly known in the West through his association with Paul Bowles
, William Burroughs
and Tennessee Williams
. Mrabet is an artist of intricate, yet colorful, felt tip and ink drawings in the style of Paul Masson or a more depressive, horror-show Jean Miro, which have been shown at various galleries in Europe and America. Mrabet's art work is his own: very loud and intricate, yet comparable with that of his contemporary, Jillali Gharbaoui (1930-1971.) Mrabet is increasingly being recognized as an important member of a small group of Moroccan Master Painters who emerged in the immediate post Colonial period and his works have become highly sought after, mostly by European collectors.
and Paul Bowles
, the latter, who, being impressed by his storytelling
skills, became the translator of his many prodigious oral tales, which were orated from a distinctive "kiffed" and utterly non-anglicized perspective and published into fourteen different books. Throughout the 1960s until 1992, Mrabet dictated his oral stories, (which Bowles translated into English) and continued work with his paintings. His books have been translated into many languages and in 1991, Philip Taaffe
collaborated with Mrabet for the illustrations of his book "Chocolate Creams and Dollars." Mrabet continues to paint and holds periodic art exhibitions, mostly in Spain and Tangier. He lives in the Souani area of Tangier, with his wife, children and grandchildren.
Morocco
Morocco , officially the Kingdom of Morocco , is a country located in North Africa. It has a population of more than 32 million and an area of 710,850 km², and also primarily administers the disputed region of the Western Sahara...
author
Author
An author is broadly defined as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created. Narrowly defined, an author is the originator of any written work.-Legal significance:...
artist
Artist
An artist is a person engaged in one or more of any of a broad spectrum of activities related to creating art, practicing the arts and/or demonstrating an art. The common usage in both everyday speech and academic discourse is a practitioner in the visual arts only...
and storyteller
Storytelling
Storytelling is the conveying of events in words, images and sounds, often by improvisation or embellishment. Stories or narratives have been shared in every culture as a means of entertainment, education, cultural preservation and in order to instill moral values...
of Berber
Berber people
Berbers are the indigenous peoples of North Africa west of the Nile Valley. They are continuously distributed from the Atlantic to the Siwa oasis, in Egypt, and from the Mediterranean to the Niger River. Historically they spoke the Berber language or varieties of it, which together form a branch...
heritage from the Ait Ouriaghel tribe in the Rif
Rif
The Rif or Riff is a mainly mountainous region of northern Morocco, with some fertile plains, stretching from Cape Spartel and Tangier in the west to Ras Kebdana and the Melwiyya River in the east, and from the Mediterranean Sea in the north to the river of Wergha in the south.It is part of the...
region. Mrabet is mostly known in the West through his association with Paul Bowles
Paul Bowles
Paul Frederic Bowles was an American expatriate composer, author, and translator.Following a cultured middle-class upbringing in New York City, during which he displayed a talent for music and writing, Bowles pursued his education at the University of Virginia before making various trips to Paris...
, William Burroughs
William S. Burroughs
William Seward Burroughs II was an American novelist, poet, essayist and spoken word performer. A primary figure of the Beat Generation and a major postmodernist author, he is considered to be "one of the most politically trenchant, culturally influential, and innovative artists of the 20th...
and Tennessee Williams
Tennessee Williams
Thomas Lanier "Tennessee" Williams III was an American writer who worked principally as a playwright in the American theater. He also wrote short stories, novels, poetry, essays, screenplays and a volume of memoirs...
. Mrabet is an artist of intricate, yet colorful, felt tip and ink drawings in the style of Paul Masson or a more depressive, horror-show Jean Miro, which have been shown at various galleries in Europe and America. Mrabet's art work is his own: very loud and intricate, yet comparable with that of his contemporary, Jillali Gharbaoui (1930-1971.) Mrabet is increasingly being recognized as an important member of a small group of Moroccan Master Painters who emerged in the immediate post Colonial period and his works have become highly sought after, mostly by European collectors.
Biography
Mohammed Mrabet, born in Tangier, 1936, his father enrolled him in Koranic school at the age of four, then in 1943 at the L'ecole public de Boukhachkhach. From 1946 to 1950, Mrabet worked as a caddy at the Royal Tangier Golf Club and thereafter as a fisherman, until 1956, when he met an American couple, Russ and Anne-Marie Reeves, at the Café Central in Tangier's Petit Socco, and remained friends with them for several years. They leased the Hotel Muneria (Tangier Inn) in Tangier and Mrabet worked there as a barman from 1956 to 1959, when he accompanied them to New York, where he stayed with them for several months. His account of his relationship with this couple is semi-fictionalised in his autobiography Look and Move On. Upon his return to Tangier in 1960, he resumed his life as a fisherman and began to paint, (his earliest drawing known to originate in 1959) and met and became friends with Jane BowlesJane Bowles
Jane Bowles, born Jane Sydney Auer , was an American writer and playwright.-Early life:Born into a Jewish family in New York, Jane Bowles spent her childhood in Woodmere, New York, on Long Island. She developed tuberculous arthritis of the knee as a teenager and her mother took her to Switzerland...
and Paul Bowles
Paul Bowles
Paul Frederic Bowles was an American expatriate composer, author, and translator.Following a cultured middle-class upbringing in New York City, during which he displayed a talent for music and writing, Bowles pursued his education at the University of Virginia before making various trips to Paris...
, the latter, who, being impressed by his storytelling
Storytelling
Storytelling is the conveying of events in words, images and sounds, often by improvisation or embellishment. Stories or narratives have been shared in every culture as a means of entertainment, education, cultural preservation and in order to instill moral values...
skills, became the translator of his many prodigious oral tales, which were orated from a distinctive "kiffed" and utterly non-anglicized perspective and published into fourteen different books. Throughout the 1960s until 1992, Mrabet dictated his oral stories, (which Bowles translated into English) and continued work with his paintings. His books have been translated into many languages and in 1991, Philip Taaffe
Philip Taaffe
Philip Taaffe is an American artistTaaffe was born in Elizabeth, New Jersey and studied at the Cooper Union in New York, gaining a Bachelor of Fine Arts in 1977....
collaborated with Mrabet for the illustrations of his book "Chocolate Creams and Dollars." Mrabet continues to paint and holds periodic art exhibitions, mostly in Spain and Tangier. He lives in the Souani area of Tangier, with his wife, children and grandchildren.
Books on Mohammed Mrabet by other authors
- 2006 - With Much Fire In The Heart: The Letters of Mohammed Mrabet to Irving Stettner by Ron Papandrea
- 2006 - Without Bowles: The Genius of Mohammed Mrabet by Andrew Clandermond and Terence MacCarthy
Literary Criticism and Reviews
- 1966 - The Spring, In Transatlantic Review, Summer 1966
- 1967 - The Blood Drinker, In The Great Society Issue 2, 1967
- 1971 - The Café, In Vertumnus (Paris) Spring 1971
- 1971 - The Young Man Who Lived Alone, In World of the Short Story April 1971
- 1971 - The Hut, In Mediterranean Review Spring 1971
- 1971 - Si Mokhtar, In Armadillo Fall 1971
- 1972 - Abdesalam and Amar, In Omphalos March 1972
- 1972 - Doctor Safi, In Rolling Stone April 1972
- 1972 - The Dutiful Son, In Bastard Angel, Spring 1972
- 1972 - Bahloul, In Antaeus Summer 1972
- 1977 - El Fellah, In Outlaw Visions 1977
- 1981 - Earth, a play by Mohammed Mrabet, In Conjunctions Issue No 1: (Winter 1981-82)
- 1990 - Mohammed Mrabet's Fiction of Alienation In World Literature Today, Vol. 64, 1990 by Ibrahim Dawood
- 1992 - Paul Bowles/Mohammed Mrabet: Translation, Transformation, and Transcultural Discourse by Richard F. Patteson
- 1999 - On Translating Paul (and Jane and Mrabet) by Claude Nathalie Thomas In Journal of Modern Literature - Volume 23, Number 1, Fall 1999, pp. 35–43
- 2006 - In Defense of Tradition: Mohammed Mrabet's Postcolonial Leanings and the Confrontation of “Kif Wisdom with Modernity by Raj Chandarlapaty
Art Exhibitions Including Catalogs
- 1970 - New York at the Antaeus office, USA
- 1970 - City Lights Bookshop, San Francisco, USA
- 1988 - La Gallerie Paul Mauradian, Lyon France
- 1989 - Cavin-Morris in New York. (Pen and Ink drawings exhibited)
- 1991- La Gallerie Art en Marge, Bruxelles, Belgium
- 1997- Hotel Continental, Tangier, Morocco
- 1998/04 - Akhawain Universite de Ifrane, Morocco
- 1998/08 - Galerie Aplanos, Cultural Museum of Assilah, Morocco
- 1998/09 - Museum of Immigration, Douai, France
- 1999 - University of Charleston, S.C; USA
- 2002 - Galeria Tarifa, Tarifa, Spain
- 2003 - Institut Cervantes, Tangier, Morocco
- 2004 - Darna, Women's Community Centre, Tangier, Morocco
- 2006 - Dawliz Complex, Tangier, Morocco
- 2006 - August The Lawrence-Arnott Art Gallery, Tangier, Morocco
- 2007 - October/November El Minzah Hotel, Tangier, Morocco
External links
- Biography of Mohammed Mrabet by Roberto de Hollanda
- IMDb: The Internet Movie Database: Mohammed Mrabet
- Details of his stories translated by Paul Bowles: University of Delaware: Special Collections Dept
- Mohammed Mrabet's Fiction of Alienation by Ibrahim Dawood; World Literature Today, Vol. 64, 1990
- Philip Taaffe: collaboration with Mohammed Mrabet on the book "Chocolate Creams and Dollars"