ABSTRACT
The Moroccan Years of Lead (1956–1999), a period of generalized political violence, have generated an impressive testimonial prison literature that recounts myriad experiences of forced disappearance at the hands of the state. The period between 1998 and 2009 witnessed the emergence of joint writing and prefatory practices that shaped the testimonial prison literature subfield of Moroccan literature. Applying translation and testimony theory to the examination of this important body of work, I argue that these joint writing and prefatory practices are activist translations, which involve the translation of embodied experience into narrative or the rewriting of already-narrativized experiences into a more literary language. Moreover, in summarizing what is thought to be important about a testimonial text, prefaces translate concepts into a language or register that supposedly makes it more accessible to potential readers. With only a few exceptions, activist translators are usually individuals with the social, moral and literary capital that endows them with the authority to advance the cause of human rights and democratization. This comparative study shows that the co-authors’ subjectivities play out in the final memoirs, raising crucial questions about testimony, truth and collective memory as they relate to the very practice of translation of testimony.
