Mohammed Khaïr-Eddine

Mohammed Khaïr-Eddine (1941-1995) is an artist creating drawings and illustrations, he is mostly famous as a very important Berber writer of Francophone literature. Lise Cormery writes his biography in "The art of the Post-War Ecole de Paris". "Mohammed Khaïr-Eddine (1941-1995) was born into a Berber family in Tafraout, in the south of Morocco near Agadir. His work is marked by the nostalgia of Berber civilization when he must leave behind him his mother and the south of Morocco, in order to go to school in Casablanca. In 1961, he was commissioned by the Moroccan Social Security Service to investigate the population affected by the 1960 earthquake that destroyed Agadir, the current city was rebuilt two kilometers further south and Khair-Eddine, as civil servant, lived there until 1963, while he kept drawing and writing in the hope of success. 

From 1963 to 1965, he lived in Casablanca and founded, with Mostafa Nissaboury, the "All Poetry" Movement that engages into a "Linguistic Guerilla". He writes in 1964, "Nausée noire" and short novels. He gets acquainted with writers of the review "Souffles", B. Jakobiak, A. Laâbi, Abdellatif Laâbi.

In 1965, thinking he might find the pure freedom he has always been searching, he leaves Morocco to settle in France even if to survive there he has to work in factories while publishing his texts and drawings in major French political, literary and philosophical magazines "Encres vives", "Lettres nouvelles" et "Présence africaine", "Les Temps modernes".

In 1967 he is The Writer that one has to read, the great revelation of the year in France, with his novel and best seller "Agadir", published by Le Seuil. "Le Monde" the intellectual daily newspaper writes laudatory reviews and he becomes famous. He becomes friend with Malraux, Sartre, Beckett, Césaire, Senghor.

He publishes extensively and hosts night radio programs for France-Culture. He writes in a spirit of absolute revolt "Negative Body", "Histoire d'un Bon Dieu" 1968, "Moi, l'aigre" 1970, "Le Déterreur" 1973, "Une odeur de mantèque" 1976, "Une vie, un rêve, un peuple toujours errants" 1978, poems "Soleil Arachnide" 1969, "Ce Maroc ! " 1975, all animated by a spirit of an absolute revolt.

In 1979, Khaïr-Eddine returns to Morocco where he publishes in 1984, "Legend and life of Agou'chich" a tribute to a thief with a great sense of honor from the historical oral tradition of Morocco.

In 1989, he is back to Paris where he reconnects with the theatre, "Memorial" is published by Cherche-Midi in 1991.

He returns to Morocco in 1993 where he dies in 1995 in Rabat.

Philippe Ronce, friend of Khaïr-Eddine and Gilles Cormery, Director of films on "Arte" writes in the Catalogue Raisonné of the paintings of Gilles Cormery "Mohamed Khaïr Eddine, my friend and friend as well of Gilles Cormery was just like him, a wandering poet, a wandering writer, a wandering drawer and illustrator, often lost in vagrancy and homelessness. Wandering like him and always animated by a spirit of absolute revolt, absolute and deep pain, calming down only when the Song of Love rises ", but "The Song of Love for all "

In 2002, his work, banned in Morocco during his lifetime, is published."