Something Strange, Like Hunger

Malika Moustadraf (1969-2006) was a writer from Casablanca, Morocco. Celebrated by other writers for her distinctive style and experimental language, Moustadraf wrote unflinchingly about life in the margins, centering the female body and experience. An exacting social critic, throughout her life she was persecuted for her taboo-busting subject matter and feminism. Her friends recall her fierce intellect, her humour, and her feminist rage. Moustadraf suffered from chronic kidney failure, preventing her from attending higher education; an intense engagement with the written word and experimentation with hybrid language became her equivalent of an academic discipline. She died at just thirty-seven of kidney disease, denied access to basic healthcare that could have saved her life. Alice Guthrie is an award-winning queer translator, editor and literature curator specialising in contemporary Arabic writing. Widely published since 2008, her work has often focused on activist art and subaltern voices. They include Rasha Abbas, Atef Abu Seif and Sahar Mandour. She teaches Translation Studies at University of Exeter and lives in Bristol.

'At once tender and cruel, insolent and profound, Malika Moustadraf is an exceptional and courageous writer who confronts the harshest realities of her country. Her characters, with all their humour and complexity, will stay with you for a long time.' Leila Slimani;'And how precious, how raw and mordant her voice is, poised with its serrated edge to slice through the obfuscations and lies of a patriarchy buttressed by institutionalised religion.'Asymptote Journal