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Abstract

Moroccan prison narratives have been credited with major political and social changes, yet their existential value is equally worth acknowledging. The prison narratives of Aziz Binebine, Mohamed Raiss, Malika Oufkir, and Fatna El Bouih, to mention but a few, are fraught with existentialist patterns that are uncovered upon reading them comparatively. One pattern that persists through these narratives is the absurdity of liberation. Borrowing Camus’ concept of the absurd, this article highlights the absurdity of the post-prison chapter for being nothing more than an extension of the prison episode that makes the impossibility of freedom acutely felt. The absurdity of liberation is especially manifested in the clash between the prisoner’s post-prison expectations and the world’s bitter indifference. This article paints the post-prison prisoner as an authentic being who emerges existentially conscious from the unbearable darkness of the prison ordeal. It also shows how such authenticity, although intensifying the sense of alienation, offers the prisoner two diametrically opposed antidotes to alienation; “integrative” and “antagonistic” authenticity. By borrowing and applying existentialist concepts in its reading of the abovementioned narratives, this article gives prison narratives a new reading to foreground the existentialism of the post-prison experience.

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