Peace through literature? For the first time, an Israeli novel has been translated for the Moroccan market.
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The acclaimed "A Girl in a Blue Shirt" by Gabriel Bensimhon, has been translated into literary Arabic for a Moroccan publisher, the Casablanca-based La Croisée des Chemins. The Arabic translation is already being sold on Amazon.
Originally published in Hebrew in 2013 by Yedioth Books, "A Girl in a Blue Shirt" tells the story of Yonatan Marciano, a teen who writes a diary about his family's arrival in Israel from Morocco. In Israel, Yonatan falls in love with Nurit, a native-born Israel who is in love with a man who survived the Holocaust. The novel takes place in the lower city of Haifa, an area known for social and ethnic clashes in the 1950s and 60s.
Bensimhon, an author, playwright, and professor emeritus at Tel Aviv University's School of Film and Television, was born in Sefrou, Morocco, in 1938. He and his family made aliyah in 1947 on the ship Yehuda Halevi, the first illegal immigrant ship to embark from North Africa.
Speaking to Israel Hayom, Bensimhon says that the novel was translated into Arabic by Professor Muhammad al-Madlawi of Mohammed V University in Rabat, who has already translated some of Bensimhon's short stories for various Moroccan platforms.
"Prose writing isn't so common in Morocco itself, and it seems like it's easier to write prose about life in Morocco when you're outside it, like I do," he observes.
He adds that the book has been translated into literary Arabic, which is read in all Arabic countries, and that there has been interest in it in Abu Dhabi.
"In the UAE there are also readers who are looking for Jewish-Arab topics, and I hope that the book being published in Morocco will help the peace process between Israel and Arab states take off," he says.
Bensimhon also says that a high-ranking Jewish advisor to King Mohammed VI, André Azoulay, has been involved in the formation of literary ties between Israel and Morocco, which follow the recent normalization of relations between Rabat and Jerusalem.
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