Le drame des 'harragas' vu de près et de loin: Youssef Amine Elalamy rencontre Hafid Bouazza

Harragas (those who burn) is the name given to the thousands of illegal immigrants from Africa who, since the 1990's, have attempted to cross the Mediterranean in search of a better life in Europe. Recently these shipwreck stories have led to the creation of a new literary genre, the harraga novel, which distinguishes itself by its innovative style and magic-realistic elements. I make a comparison between two texts in which the theme of the harragas is central. De Oversteek (The Crossing, 2005) is a short story written by Hafid Bouazza, a Dutch author of Moroccan descent. Les Clandestins (The illegal immigrants, 2000) was written by Youssef Amine Elalamy, a French-speaking Moroccan writer who lives and is published in Rabat. This essay examines the way in which both of these authors make use of magical and poetic symbolism to confer a political and/or historical, autobiographical character to their texts.