‘Writers from Casablanca’

In 2008, Réda Dalil gave up his career in finance for journalism. Two years later, he became Editor-in-Chief of the weekly magazine Le Temps. His first novel Le Job (2014) won the Prix de la Mamounia, which celebrates the best French-language Moroccan novel of the year, and the Prix Gros Sel. He was also a finalist for le Prix de la littérature arabe. His second novel Best-Seller (2016, Editions Le Fennec) was shortlisted for the 2016 Arab Literature Prize.

Youssef Fadel is a novelist, playwright, screenwriter and director. In 1974, the play La Guerre cost him eight months in prison. His novel Haschich was awarded the Le Grand Atlas prize. In France, two of his plays and two of his novels were published by Actes Sud: Un joli chat blanc marche derrière moi (A Beautiful White Cat Walks with Me) and Un oiseau bleu et rare vole avec moi (A Rare Blue Bird Flies with Me). In this latest novel, which won the Prix Marocain du Livre, Fadel continues his exploration of Moroccan power, this time by looking at the terrible treatment of political prisoners during the period known as the ‘years of lead’.