The late Driss El Khouri was an eminent writer and one of the pioneers of contemporary Moroccan literature, underlined the participants in a meeting, organized on the occasion of the fortieth day of his death.
The various speakers at this meeting, initiated by the National Library of the Kingdom of Morocco (BNRM) and the Union of Moroccan Writers (UEM), highlighted the human qualities of the deceased who represented “a singular literary phenomenon” in the history of contemporary Morocco, alongside other writers such as Mohamed Zafzaf and Mohamed Choukri.
In a word on this occasion, the director of the BNRM, Mohamed El Ferrane, noted that Driss El Khouri bequeathed to posterity “a legacy of creation and high morality”, adding that his disappearance will not erase the memory of a man “who gave with generosity and a good heart”.
The late was known for his honesty, loyalty, humility and human commitment, and made a great effort to develop literary creation and the narrative genre.
For his part, the president of the EMU, Abderrahim El Allam, affirmed that the disappearance of the Moroccan writer El Khouri left “a great human void which would be difficult to fill”, maintaining that the deceased was like a father for all his relatives and friends and “rejoiced to see himself nicknamed Ba Driss”.
He pointed out that the deceased had many interests in various fields, including journalism and short stories, in which he distinguished himself greatly thanks to his mastery of storytelling techniques, storytelling and description, adding that the late s was also interested in visual arts and cinema, which are reflected in his creative writing, namely news and press articles.
In turn, Youssef El Khouri described the linguistic use and style of his late father’s creations as both “sober” and “not easy”, calling “Ba Driss” exceptional in every detail of his life. because he “was not a traditional father, but a brother and a friend”.
He added that he was “the spoiled child of the family…He loved life and lived it as he pleased until his last breath”, referring to the kind-heartedness and frankness that distinguished his dad.
The other testimonies during this meeting, punctuated by the projection of a video on the deceased and an exhibition of some of his personal objects, unanimously praised the literary record of the late Driss El Khouri, but also his sense of ‘humor.
Born in 1939 in Casablanca, the late El Khouri was one of the personalities who left a special mark on literature and the press in Morocco. Among his novels are Al-Bidayat (Beginnings, 1980) and Al-Ayyam wa Allayali (Days and Nights, 1982).
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