Khalid Lyamlahy

I work on Francophone North African literature in relation to political, social, and cultural debates in the region and beyond. My broad research interests include contemporary fiction and poetry in the French-speaking world, literary and postcolonial theory, creative writing, and translation, especially between French and Arabic. My scholarly publications have appeared in PMLA, Research in African Literature, The Journal of North African Studies, French Studies, Nottingham French Studies, the Irish Journal of French Studies, and Revue Roland Barthes. 

My first monograph, Nostalgic Rebels: Politics, Aesthetics, and Selfhood in Postcolonial Morocco (Liverpool University Press, 2025), examines subversive and nostalgic modes of writing in the works of three eminent Francophone Moroccan writers from the Souffles generation — named for Souffles-Anfas, an influential journal of culture and politics founded in Morocco in 1966: Mohammed Khaïr-Eddine (1941-1995), Abdelkébir Khatibi (1938-2009), and Abdellatif Laâbi (b. 1942). Over the last decade, I have worked extensively on these three writers. I coedited with Jane Hiddleston the collective volume Abdelkébir Khatibi: Postcolonialism, Transnationalism, and Culture in the Maghreb and Beyond (Liverpool University Press, 2020), the first English-language book entirely devoted to Khatibi’s work and thought. I wrote the preface to the first two volumes of the Moroccan edition of Laâbi’s complete poetic work (Éditions du Sirocco, 2018). I also contributed prefaces and afterwords to several English translations of Khaïr-Eddine’s works, including Agadir (Lavender Ink / Diálogos, 2020), I, Caustic (Litmus Press, 2022), and Proximal Morocco— (Ugly Duckling Presse, 2023).  

I am currently working on two projects. The first is a French-language monograph that analyzes Khaïr-Eddine’s poetry from a transnational perspective, with a focus on his poetic affinities with sub-Saharan African and Caribbean writers. The second is an English-language monograph exploring literary resonances and dialogues between different generations of North African and sub-Saharan African writers.  

I was born in Rabat, Morocco, and worked as a civil engineer and project manager in Paris and London. Before joining the University of Chicago, I completed a PhD in French and Francophone Studies at the University of Oxford (St Anne’s College, 2018) and an MA in Comparative Literature at the Université Paris 3 Sorbonne Nouvelle (2014). In addition to my academic work, I am also a creative writer and a prolific literary critic. I am the author of two novels, Un roman étranger (2017) and Évocation d’un mémorial à Venise (2023), both published by Présence Africaine in Paris. My second novel, which received several awards, including the Prix Éthiophile for the best francophone literary work from Africa, the Caribbean, and the Indian Ocean and an honorable mention from the Prix des Cinq Continents de la Francophonie, was translated into English, Arabic, and Romanian. I have also co-published, with Rym Khene, a chapbook of poetry and photography, J’ai rencontré un cheval de mer (Éditions La place, 2022), and have translated into Arabic Felwine Sarr’s Habiter le monde: essai de politique relationnelle (Kulte Éditions, 2022). 

I am a regular contributor to several literary magazines and platforms, including En Attendant Nadeau, Non-Fiction.fr, Zone Critique, Orient XXI, La Vie des Idées, Collatéral, Al-Araby Al-Jadeed, Al-Quds Al-Arabi, and World Literature Today.  

University of Chicago Affiliations 

• The Committee on Theater and Performance Studies (TAPS) 
• Center for Middle Eastern Studies (CMES) 
• Center for the Study of Race, Politics, and Culture (CSRPC) 
• Center for the Study of Gender and Sexuality (CSGS) 
• Translation Studies at UChicago 

Recent Courses in RLL

• FREN 26333 La poésie maghrébine d'expression française (Spring 2025)
• FREN 21505/31505 Lire les littératures francophones : éléments d’analyse littéraire (Winter 2023)
• FREN 24700, GNSE 24700 Introduction à la littérature féminine au Maroc (Winter 2025)
• FREN 24777 North African France: Decolonization, Immigration and Postcolonial Identity (September 2023)
• FREN 24900 Nouvelles du Maghreb (Autumn 2022)
• FREN 25505/35505 Grandes voix féminines des Lettres africaines (Autumn 2021)
• FREN 25610 Figures de l'immigré dans la littérature maghrébine d'expression française (Spring 2021)
• FREN 25660 Introduction à la littérature carcérale au Maroc (Autumn 2025)
• FREN 26012 Introduction au théâtre maghrébin (Spring 2022)
• FREN 26333/36333 Introduction à la poésie maghrébine d'expression française (Autumn 2019, Spring 2025)
• FREN 27400 Autobiographies Maghrébines: de l'Écriture de Soi à l'Écriture de l'Histoire (Winter 2019)
• FREN 28410/38410 Ecrire le "Printemps arabe" au Magreb: témoignages et perspectives littéraires (Autumn 2020, Winter 2026)
• FREN 41400 The Legacy of Fatima Mernissi: Feminism, Islam, and Politics (Autumn 2025)
• FREN 41815 Writing the Algerian War of Independence (Autumn 2021)
• FREN/PORT/SPAN 42310 World Literatures in Dialogue: Latin American and Francophone Perspectives (Autumn 2020)
• FREN/GNSE 43000 Feminine Autobiographical Voices from the Maghreb (Autumn 2022)
• FREN 45000 Second-Generation Maghrebis in France: Immigration, Identity, and Belonging (Winter 2025)