Images of the West in the Moroccan Contemporary Novel: Negotiating Difference

Cultural representation has been a hot commodity in academia since the advent of postcolonial and cultural studies. This book investigates the various images of the West(s) in the Moroccan contemporary novel. The study shows that the representation of the West was oftentimes paradoxical and ambivalent; it was neither entirely homogeneous nor fixed because it largely succumbed to the mutable sociopolitical and historical contexts determining the West-East/Morocco relations. More importantly, the writer's personal experiences and ideological backgrounds are determining factors in shaping the image of the West. The close reading of five Moroccan novels in this book demonstrates the heterogeneity of conceptions vis- -vis cultural Otherness.