From Najat El Hachmi, Dispatches from the Border of the Self
BY MEGHAN KEANE
“Literature is a fundamental element to understanding people,” said Najat El Hachmi, a renowned novelist and college professor, in a talk on Oct. 30 at Carleton College. “It’s vital.”
In her talk, given in Spanish, El Hachmi described growing up on the border between two cultures and the role that literature played in shaping her identity.
Born in Morocco, El Hachmi moved to Barcelona, in the Catalonia region of northern Spain, as a child. In her teens, she began trying to identify where she stood at the cross-section of two cultures.
“I am a patchwork,” she finally decided. At that point she embraced all the aspects of her life — from immigration to schooling to her ethnic and linguistic background — as equally a part of her unique personality.
Literature played a large part in forming that understanding.
When she first arrived in Catalonia, she said, “Catalonian literature let me enter into Spanish houses and understand the new culture.”
From this literary background, she began to write at the age of twelve and eventually to publish her own autobiographies and novels.
Extreme Beliefs
In 2004, El Hachmi published her first book “Jo també sóc catalana” (“I too am Catalan”), and in 2008 she won the Ramon Llull prize, the most prestigious award in Catalan letters, for her novel “L’últim patriarca” (“The Last Patriarch”).
Her writing has also helped her to understand where she belongs in the world, El Hachmi said. When she walks into bookstores, she said, she always looks to see in which section her books are placed – foreign literature, Catalan literature, Spanish literature, Arabic literature.
“In my opinion, ‘universal’ literature doesn’t exist. Everything has context, everything is a part of something,” she said.
This context strengthens her own patchwork; and the patchwork itself is what gives strength to anyone, she said.
“It is extremely dangerous to believe that you only belong to one group. You can be manipulated by governments or religions in extreme cases,” El Hachmi said.
By belonging to more than one group, she is less easily swayed to extreme beliefs and feels more connected to humanity as a whole, she said.
“This is not just a problem for immigrants,” El Hachmi said. “Everyone has a frontera,” or border, she said.
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