Casablanca is the largest city in Morocco and the country's economic and business centre. Located on the Atlantic coast of the Chaouia plain in the central-western part of Morocco, the city has a population of about 3.71 million in the urban area, and over 4.27 million in Greater Casablanca, making it the most populous city in the Maghreb region, and the eighth-largest in the Arab world.
Driss Chraïbi was a Moroccan author whose novels deal with colonialism, culture clashes, generational conflict and the treatment of women and are often perceived as semi-autobiographical.
The culture of Morocco is a blend of Arab, Berber, Andalusi cultures, with Mediterranean, Hebraic and African influences. It represents and is shaped by a convergence of influences throughout history. This sphere may include, among others, the fields of personal or collective behaviors, language, customs, knowledge, beliefs, arts, legislation, gastronomy, music, poetry, architecture, etc. While Morocco started to be stably predominantly Sunni Muslim starting from 9th–10th century AD, during the Almoravid period, a very significant Andalusi culture was imported, contributing to the shaping of Moroccan culture. Another major influx of Andalusi culture was brought by Andalusis with them following their expulsion from Al-Andalus to North Africa after the Reconquista. In antiquity, starting from the second century A.D and up to the seventh, a rural Donatist Christianity was present, along an urban still-in-the-making Roman Catholicism. All of the cultural super strata tend to rely on a multi-millennial aboriginal Berber substratum still present and dating back to prehistoric times.
Moroccan literature are the written and oral works of Moroccan culture. These works have been produced and shared by people who lived in Morocco and the historical states that have existed partially or entirely within the geographical area of modern-day Morocco. Apart from the various forms of oral literature, the written literature of Morocco encompasses various genres, including poetry, prose, theater, and nonfiction including philosophical and religious literature. Moroccan literature has mainly been written in Arabic and French, and to a lesser extent also in Berber languages, Judeo-Arabic, Spanish, and after the mid-19th century in English.[pages needed] Through translations into English and other languages, Moroccan literature has become accessible to readers worldwide.
Nadia Chafik is a Moroccan novelist.
Mohamed Zafzaf was a Moroccan Arabic-language novelist and poet. He played a pivotal role in the development of Moroccan literature in the second half of the 20th century and, due to his contributions, came to be known by such titles as "the godfather of Moroccan literature", "the Moroccan Tolstoy", "the Moroccan Dostoyevsky" and as "our great author" among his Moroccan peers.
The history of the city of Casablanca in Morocco has been one of many political and cultural changes. At different times it has been governed by Berber, Roman, Arab, Portuguese, Spanish, French, British, and Moroccan regimes. It has had an important position in the region as a port city, making it valuable to a series of conquerors during its early history.
Hafsa Bekri-Lamrani is a Moroccan poet and writer of a book of short stories, Jellabiates (2001). She published: Tendresse et autres lumières and Sparks of Life, two collections of poetry at Aïni Bennai editions, Casablanca (2004). In 2021 she published Et pourtant elle rêve, a novel in French.She was invited for a writing residence in 2002 in England in Hadrian's Wall region where there were Moroccans at the beginning of the second century. A journal of this residence is published on the net: Berbers in Solway: Journal of a Moroccan poet. In 2009 she published The call of Hagar in Women writing Africa, The Northern Region She is a member of the Centre d’études et de recherche sur la Méditerranée and of the Medina Sociocultural association. She was a nominee in 2012 for the Moroccan Women Mentoring and Networking Award.
Sami Mermer is a Turkish Canadian documentary filmmaker of Kurdish descent.
Fatima bint Muhammad al-Fihriya al-Qurashiyya, known in shorter form as Fatima al-Fihriya or Fatima al-Fihri, was an Arab woman who is credited with founding the al-Qarawiyyin Mosque in 857–859 CE in Fez, Morocco. She is also known as Umm al-Banīn. Al-Fihriya died around 880 CE. The al-Qarawiyyin Mosque subsequently developed into a teaching institution, which became the modern University of al-Qarawiyyin in 1963. Her story is told by Ibn Abi Zar' in The Garden of Pages as founder of the mosque. Since she was first mentioned many centuries after her death, her story has been hard to substantiate and some modern historians doubt her existence.
Rita El Khayat also known as "Ghita". Ghita El Khayat,, is Moroccan psychiatrist, anthro-psychoanalyst, writer, and anthropologist. She studied at modern schools of Rabat and completed her graduation in the field of Psychiatry, Psychoanalyst and Medical Aerospace from Paris whereas graduation in Ergonomics and Occupational Medicine were completed from Bordeaux. She did her PhD in Anthropology of Arab World from.
Youssouf Amine Elalamy is a Moroccan writer, visual artist and professor of Media Studies and Communication at Ibn Tofail University. He has published his works mainly in French and occasionally in Moroccan Arabic.
Goodbye Mothers is a Moroccan film directed by Mohamed Ismaïl. Set-up in Casablanca, the movie depicts the fate of Moroccan Muslim and Jewish families during the exodus of the Jews of Morocco in the beginning of the 1960s. The plot inspires itself from the tragic sinking of the Egoz, when 44 Moroccan Jews who were clandestinely emigrating to Israel lost their lives.
Aïcha Chenna was a Moroccan social worker, women's rights advocate and activist. A registered nurse, she began working with disadvantaged women as an employee of the country's Ministry of Health. In 1985, she founded the Association Solidarité Féminine (ASF), a Casablanca-based charity that assists single mothers and victims of abuse. Chenna received various humanitarian awards for her work, including the 2009 Opus Prize.
Fedwa Misk is a Moroccan writer, former journalist, feminist, and women's rights activist. She participated in the 2011 February 20 Movement and subsequently opened an online magazine with the aim of promoting discussion about women in Morocco. Misk's publication Qandisha featured several high-profile stories and was targeted by hackers twice. She has been working as a writer for many newspapers and broadcaster of Diwane, a literary radio programme. In 2021, she published a, "Nos mères", a play about transmission between women and its impact on feminism.
Zainab Fasiki is a Moroccan graphic artist, activist for women's rights and mechanical engineer by training. She became internationally known after 2019, following her graphic novel Hshouma, corps et sexualité au Maroc which was translated from French into Moroccan Arabic, Spanish, Galician and Italian.
Aline Réveillaud de Lens, was a French novelist and painter who lived and worked in Tunisia and Morocco. She signed her works A. R. de Lens, A.-R. de Lens and Aline de Lens.
Siham Boukhami is a Moroccan professional footballer who plays as a defender for AS FAR and the Morocco women's national team.
Malika Moustadraf was a Moroccan Arabic-language writer. She is best known for her pioneering short stories and women's rights activism, which set her squarely in Morocco's feminist vanguard. Before her early death at age 37, she published a novel, Jirah al-ruh wa-l-jasad, and the story collection Trente-Six.
