Lo spazio letterario nella critica marocchina (1984-2011). Tra approcci formalistici e ricerca di nuovi paradigmi

This article provides a roundup of the extant scholarly literature on space and place in the Arabic novel, focusing on the Moroccan literary criticism in Arabic from 1984 to 2011. It reviews the contributions of some of the most important authors to what can be described as a ‘canon’ of studies on literary space. The essay focuses on the work by Ḥasan Baḥrāwī, Muḥammad al-Būrīmī and Ḥamīd Lḥamdānī, who have laid the foundations for the structuralist criticism of literary space and place in the 1980s. Moreover, it analyses two essays by Ḥasan Naǧmī and Ḥūriyya al-Ẓill that challenge the formalist paradigm previously dominating the field.