The Novel Si Yussef by Anouar Majid

Anouar Majid’s novel Si Yussef deals essentially with the issue of hybridity. Anouar Majid’s protagonist marries Lucia with whom he lives in Tangiers. Actually, there is a logical prediction that most readers automatically would expect that Si Yussef would influence Lucia culturally. This expectation is quite normal for a very single reason; the socialization process is at Si Yussef’s side. Unpredictably, the novel suggests the inverse.
In the novel, Si Yussef is depicted as a hybrid that is trapped between Spanish and Moroccan cultures. He speaks Spanish so fluently to the extent that he was habituated to reading newspapers in Spanish language. The narrator portrays Si Yussef as being divided between his absolute loyalty to the woman he loved and his pride for the culture that made him.
Captivatingly, the interracial marriage of Si Yussef and Lucia specifically invokes a cultural coexistence between a Catholic and Muslim individuals. The author’s message centrally evokes the issue of religious and cultural tolerance. Building on the fact that neither Lucia nor Si Yussef converts to the religions of each. Nevertheless, due to personal trustworthiness and love the two characters lived a joyful life. However, beneath all what he achieved there are certain losses that Si Yussef himself declares; through he admits that he cares about her to the extent that he would die for her if need be. In a nostalgic ton, Si Youssef says my good luck has denied me the chance-no it’s more than chance, it’s passion- the passion to regain my faith and to continue to recite the Qur’an, like I did when I was a child. Si Yussef resorts to the workings of memory and the confronting processes of reviving the past, of attempting to reconnect the self with its origins.
Nostalgia, then, comes into view in the moment when Si Yussef attempts to confront the cultural changes and conditions imbricating him within his homeland. He sets his struggle to come to term with his past against present