Fouad Laroui’s Une année chez les Français: A Unique Exilic Experience

Abstract

This article examines Mehdi Khatib's exile experience at the Lycée Lyautey, flagship of French Education in Casablanca. In this establishment reserved for the elites, this child, a State Scholarship recipient, will undergo the throes of exile under its many facets. The difference in economic status, the confrontation with new social norms as well as the linguistic separation that he will endure, immerses him in a minority situation that he will overcome thanks to the world of books. Often viewed as a type of isolation and humiliation, reading will prove to be his road to success and social recognition.