Skins and rags in Kamal Abderrahim’s fictional trilogy: The body as a parchment of history

Abstract

In his trilogy of novels, Abderrahim Kamal revisits the final years of King Hassan II's reign – a period marked by the revelation of the Tazmamart prison, a clandestine facility that became a symbol of state violence, swallowing dozens of lives in anonymity and oblivion. While most of the detainees perished under inhumane conditions, a handful of miraculous survivors emerged after two decades of torture and deprivation, their broken bodies serving as living archives of barbarity.

The protagonists of Kamal's trilogy – mostly committed visual artists, painters or sculptors – strive to give form to the unspeakable and to sublimate horror. Through their artistic creations, they probe wounded flesh, recover a scarred memory inscribed on the body itself, and work to rehabilitate the victims by restoring to them a name, a dignity, a story. The artist, depicted as a quasi-Christ-like figure, appears to bear the burden of collective redemption, but this mission comes at the cost of devastating personal sacrifice, leading him to the edge of madness or into the depths of despair.

Yet, like other Moroccan prison narratives that confront evil by giving it shape and voice, Kamal's trilogy contributes to a slow but necessary process of reconciliation between Moroccans and their history. It opens a space for memory, recognition, and healing.