Analisi comparativa dell’autobiografia marocchina moderna e del racconto egiziano: Fī ʾl-ṭufūlah e Qindīl Umm Hāšim un caso di studio

This study aims to investigate the influence of the modern Egyptian novel and short story on modern Moroccan production through a comparative analysis of the works of two authors: ʿAbd al-Maǧīd Ibn Ǧallūn (1919-1981) and Yaḥyà Ḥaqqī (1905-1992). While literary critics usually compare Fī ʾl-ṭufūlah (In Childhood, 1957, 1968) by Ibn Ǧallūn with al-Ayyām (The Days, vol. I,1929, vol. II, 1939, vol. III, 1967), by Ṭāhā Ḥusayn (Rooke 1997a; Fernández Parrilla 1997, 2006; Barrādah 1971), the present analysis intends to show the points of contact between Fī ʾl-ṭufūlah and the novella Qindīl Umm Hāšim (The Lamp of Umm Hāšim, 1944), both on a formal and thematic level. This case study stems from the assumption that Ḥaqqī’s novella had an impact on Ibn Ǧallūn’s autobiographical writing. Therefore, the comparative analysis aims to 1) delineate the similarities and oppositions between the two narrative and structural forms and 2) interpret them through the observation of their particular use of modern narrative and discursive techniques. The results are intended to corroborate discourses on the reception of Ibn Ǧallūn’s work by assimilating both trends that view literary writing as a social and political act and trends that are concerned with literary and artistic innovation.