Fatiha Morchid

 In’itak arraghba (Liberating Desire)

Novel

Book Cultural Center, Beirut/Casablanca 2019

“Liberating Desire” is the title of Fatiha Morchid’s new novel, published by Book Cultural Center, Beirut/Casablanca 2019.

Once again, Fatiha Morchid sheds light on marginalized communities and taboos in our Arab societies, exposing shortcomings and contradictions.

Once again, modernity is at the heart of her narrative, which seeks to express in its profound human dimension, man’s desire to affirm his individuality and his difference.

In a poetic style, the novel tells Az Eddine’s story and his desire to free himself from a body that does not reflect his true sexual identity, while recounting the process of his physical transformation.

It is a bold narrative which confronts readers with questions about the concepts of masculinity and femininity, sex and gender, and brings them closer to the reality of sexual minorities.

We read on the back of the cover:

“I was bleeding in secret, trying to understand what was happening to me in secret, and I was hoping in secret just as much.

But to hope is to live tomorrow, to love what you don’t have…

And what about today? Of what you have in your hands? Of that moment that shatters you?

To hope for something is not to desire it.

Hope is expectation, desire is motion.

“Hope is life,” they say. Quite the opposite, it sometimes prevents us from being alive now, waiting for what may likely never happen.

While Desire is the impetus, the engine that drives us forward.

“Desire is life” and in its liberation, our salvation. ”

” Liberating Desire” is a novel that denounces prejudices and obstacles to a life that would reflect the inner reality of the individual and respect one’s choice.

Fatiha Morchid, winner of the 2010 Morocco Poetry Prize, is both a poet and a novelist. A pediatrician by profession, she prepared and presented a health care education program on the Moroccan TV channel 2M, along with a poetry show called “Moment of Poetry” in the same station.

A member of the Union of Moroccan Writers, Fatiha Morchid has published eight collections of poetry translated into several languages, a collection of short stories ” As Love Is Not Enough ” and five best-selling novels:  « Just a Few Moments », « Fun’s Claws », « The Muses », « The Right to Leave » and « The Twins ».