Just Different: Moroccan writer Malika Moustadraf

She was an outsider, an experimenter, a “rebel realist” and a feminist. You may not have read the short stories of Malika Moustadraf (1969-2006), since her work fell out of print after her untimely death. But tales of Moustadraf’s fierce talent never stopped circulating, and now her work is back in print in Arabic and also set to appear in Alice Guthrie’s English translation.

The US and UK editions of this collection have different titles. The US edition of Moustadraf’s stories, Blood Feast, is out from The Feminist Press, while the UK edition, Something Strange, Like Hunger, is out from Saqi Books.

There is also an audiobook, narrated by Amin El Gamal and Lameece Issaq.

We talk about another important Moroccan author whose work was in danger of falling out of circulation, Ahmed Bouanani, in an earlier episode: Writing to Remember.