Censored Moroccan Novel on Lesbian Experience Becomes Surprise Bestseller

The book tells the story of a Moroccan woman from a modest family, Titima, who was a victim of rape during her childhood and married at the age of 17 to a man she does not love, from whom she eventually divorces after discovering her homosexuality. It is then that she begins to defy her entourage and express her views on religion and customs in Morocco where the Penal Code condemns homosexuality to a sentence of up to three years in prison.

The author of the book, the 25-year-old Moroccan writer Fatima Ezzahra Amezgar, denounces the pressures exerted on the organizers of the event to remove her book from the Fair, just before an autograph session. "If today they defend homosexuality, tomorrow we will read the memoirs of people who have sexual relations with their sisters, their mothers or their daughters...", reacted the Salafist leader, Hassan el Kattani, on his Facebook page, trying to justify the authorities’ decision.

The Ministry of Culture, for its part, explained that Fatima’s novel was removed because it would not have been regularly registered on the list of works to be exhibited at the Fair. "The arguments put forward by the ministry are unfounded and its decision is illegal," declared the writer and Arabic teacher in a high school in Casablanca, her hometown, to EFE. "It would be illogical to censor the work. Today, everything is circulating on social networks that cannot be monitored," said the president of the National Council for Human Rights, hinting that the book could circulate despite its official censorship.

"I wrote it to defend coexistence. I was shocked when I discovered the hostility of society towards members of the LGBT+ community," stressed Fatima, urging Moroccan institutions and political leaders to legislate in favor of the LGBT+ population. After this controversy, the book has become a bestseller in the kingdom. The author plans translations into several languages. She is already working on another novel based on dialogues between prisoners and titled "Castrated Women".