El Koudia, Jilali 1954-

PERSONAL:

Born January 1, 1954, in Taza, Morocco; son of Ahmed ben Abdeslam (a farmer) and Tahra Bent M'hamed (a homemaker) El Koudia; married Mahdia Ait Daoud (a homemaker), May, 1990; children: Amal. Ethnicity: "Arab." Education: University Mohamed V, B.A., 1976, C.E.C., 1978; University of Strathclyde, Ph.D., 1982. Religion: Muslim.

ADDRESSES:

Home—Fez, Morocco. Office—Faculty of Letters, Dhar al-Mahraz, University Sidi Mohammed ben Abdallah, Fez, Morocco.

CAREER:

University Sidi Mohammed ben Abdallah, Fez, Morocco, professor of English and American literature, 1982—.

MEMBER:

Moroccan Writers' Union.

AWARDS, HONORS:

British Council prize for Moroccan writings in English.

WRITINGS:

Stories under the Sun, I'Media (Fez, Morocco), 1999.

That Night and Other Stories, I'Media (Fez, Morocco), 2001.

(Compiler and reteller) Moroccan Folktales, translated from the Arabic by El Koudia and Roger Allen, edited by Allen, Syracuse University Press (Syracuse, NY), 2003.

A Collection of Short Stories, 2006.

TRANSLATOR

(With Hamid Lahmidani) Wolfgang Iser, The Act of Reading, Al-Manahil (Fez, Morocco), 1995.

Moroccan Short Stories, I'Media (Fez, Morocco), 1998.

(With Hamid Lahmidani) Wolfgang Iser, The Fictive and the Imaginary, Annajah (Casablanca, Morocco), 1998.

(With Khalid Touzani) R.C. Holub, Reception Theory, Mohamedia (Casablanca, Morocco), 1999.

Selected Short Stories, 2006.

SIDELIGHTS:

Jilali El Koudia told CA: "I write in order to know myself and other human beings, to communicate and share my experiences with others. I began writing when I was an adolescent, with dreams and fantasies that could be fulfilled only in writing. As I grow old, with yet more dreams and fantasies, I realize that the task of the writer is, if it aspires to credibility and utility, to express his dreams and fantasies and those of the silent majority. Poe, Hemingway, Bouzeffour, and Zefzaf influenced my writing, but my sources of inspiration are the world I live in and the people I meet.

"I write in layers. First I write down an idea or impression spontaneously and quickly. Then I keep going over it many times until I get to a satisfactory version. My area of writing is then fiction, especially the short story, where both freedom of imagination and discipline can be reconciled."