Khalid Lyamlahy completed a PhD in Medieval and Modern Languages at the University of Oxford (St Anne’s College). His dissertation, entitled “From Revolt to Nostalgia: Rethinking the Moroccan Postcolonial Malaise with Mohammed Khaïr-Eddine, Abdelkébir Khatibi, and Abdellatif Laâbi”, analyzes the expression of revolt and nostalgia in relation to individual and collective malaise in Morocco through the works of three contemporary Moroccan Francophone authors.
Lyamlahy was born in Rabat, Morocco, and worked as an engineer and a project manager in Paris and London. He holds a Master’s degree in engineering from Ecole des Mines d’Alès (2008) in southern France, a BA in French and Modern Languages (2012) and an MA in Comparative Literature (2014), both from Université Paris 3 – Sorbonne Nouvelle. In the period 2016-2018, Lyamlahy served as the Book Reviews Editor for the Bulletin of Francophone Postcolonial Studies, and as the editor of the ‘Francophone African Literature’ section of The Year’s Work in Modern Language Studies. His research interests include North African studies, Francophone fiction and poetry, literary theory, and translation. In addition to his academic work, he is a regular contributor to literary magazines and platforms including En Attendant Nadeau, World Literature Today, Non-Fiction.fr, Africa at LSE, and Zone Critique. His first novel, Un Roman Étranger, was published in January 2017 in Paris by Présence Africaine Editions.
Lyamlahy recently wrote the preface to the complete poetic work of Moroccan poet Abdellatif Laâbi, republished in a special Moroccan edition by Editions du Sirocco in Casablanca, and is co-editing a book about Moroccan writer Abdelkébir Khatibi, forthcoming with Liverpool University Press. Besides revising his thesis into a monograph, Lyamlahy is working on a new research project that problematizes the notions of selfhood and otherness in post-2011 Francophone North African literature and aims to bring a critical perspective to aesthetic, political, and linguistic practices in the aftermath of the Arab Spring.
Selected Publications
Book chapters
• “Un désir d'écriture : Flaubert, Barthes et la pratique de la notation dans le Voyage en Italie”, in Eric Le Calvez (ed.), Flaubert voyageur (Paris : Classiques Garnier, 2019), pp.101-118
• “From Dictatorship to Self-Constitution: Historical Fiction and Aesthetics of Tyranny in Bensalem Himmich’s Le Calife de l’épouvante”, in Charlotte Baker and Hannah Grayson (ed.), Fictions of African Dictatorship: Cultural Representations of Postcolonial Power (Oxford: Peter Lang, 2018), pp.37-56
• “La métamorphose de Kertész: le sujet-écrivain et les défis de la mémoire”, in Gislinde Seybert (ed.), Götzendämmerung – Crépuscule des idoles. Seconde Guerre mondiale dans la mémoire collective: Littérature – Art – Histoire (Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang Verlag, 2017), pp. 225-247
Articles
• “Toward an Aesthetics of Self-Sovereignty: The Symbolic of Anti-Authoritarian Discourse in Mohammed Khaïr-Eddine's Agadir”, in Research in African Literatures, Vol. 49, No. 3, “Performances of Sovereignty in African Dictator-Fiction” (Fall 2018), pp.131-152
• “‘Ecrire veut dire greffer’: Recomposition de l’identité amérindienne et dynamique de l’instable dans Le Bras Coupé de Bernard Assiniwi”, in Sylvie Vignes (ed.), Image de l’Amérindien dans les littératures francophones, La Revue des Lettres Modernes, 2018-10, Collection “Littératures francophones au présent”, n°1, pp.145-161
• “Esthétique de la biographie (dé)mystificatrice : Lecture d’Évocation de Matthias Stimmberg d’Alain-Paul Mallard”, in Françoise Palleau and Lou Rowan (dir.), Itinéraires : Littérature, Textes, Cultures, 2017-2 “Biographie et fiction”
• “Le premier Barthes en revue : sur les traces des années Existences”, in Jacqueline Guittard and Magali Nachtergael (dir.), Revue Roland Barthes, 2017-3 “Barthes en revues (1942-1980)”
• “Moving beyond mobility: the aesthestics of exile and becoming in Mohammed Khaïr-Eddine’s Légende et vie d’Agoun’chich”, in The Journal of North African Studies, Volume 22, Issue 2, 2017, pp.259-282
• “Prefiguring the Moroccan Spring: the dynamics of subversion and renewal in Abdellatif Laâbi’s Le Spleen de Casablanca”, in Expressions maghrébines, Vol. 15, n°2, Hiver 2016, pp.59-84
• “Une mélancolie marocaine. Portrait de l’intellectuel et pouvoir de l’écriture dans Lettres à un jeune marocain” in @nalyses. Revue de critique et de théorie littéraire, Vol. 11, n°3, Automne 2016, pp.80-104
• “Roland Barthes, du haïku au roman. Lecture de La Préparation du Roman”, in Claude Coste & Mathieu Messager (dir.), Revue Roland Barthes, nº 2, Octobre 2015, “Barthes à l’étranger”
Translations
• Abdelkebir Khatibi, “What happened to the dream of a united Maghreb ?”, in Le Monde diplomatique, March 6, 2019
• Rebekah Vince, “Frontières”, poetry, in Apulée: Revue de littérature et de réflexion, n°4 “Traduire le monde” (Paris : Editions Zulma, 2019), pp.215-216
Fiction & Creative writing
• “Lettres à un ami traducteur”, in Apulée: Revue de littérature et de réflexion, n°4 “Traduire le monde”(Paris : Editions Zulma, 2019), pp.130-132
• “Conversation avec un rameau d’olivier”, in Apulée: Revue de littérature et de réflexion, n°3 “La guerre et la paix” (Paris : Editions Zulma, 2018), pp.180-182
• “Un petit coin de paradis”, short story, in Collectif, Tourbillon (Genève : Editions Encre Fraîche, 2018)
• Un Roman étranger, novel (Paris: Présence Africaine, 2017)
Professional Affiliations
• Center for Middle Eastern Studies (University of Chicago)
• American Comparative Literature Association (ACLA)
• Modern Language Association (MLA)
• Society for Francophone Postcolonial Studies (UK)
Recent Courses in RLL
- FREN 26333/36333 Introduction à la poésie maghrébine d'expression française (Autumn 2019)
- FREN 27400 Autobiobraphies Maghrébines: de l'Écriture de Soi à l'Écriture de l'Histoire (Winter 2019)
