“Bouquineurs”: a reading initiative to make Moroccans meet around a book

RABAT – Who said that nobody reads in Morocco?  If reading is a solitary activity and books are the best companions of loneliness, then sharing this intellectual passion with others can only be one of the best experiences.

The adventure starts with “Bouquineurs” (bookworms) a virtual Facebook group, created in 2011, by voluntary administrators. Today, it has 43,747 members, and each day hundreds of people “like” this  public page, where one little click can make you discover many books, many lights… for free, of course.

You have a question about literature, philosophy or other subjects? You want to check if a book is available on the net? You want an audio book? You can post it!  And hundreds of thousands of readers can surely help you.

Beyond the social networking site, the Bouquineurs also hold a monthly meeting in both Rabat and Casablanca.

These monthly ‘literary cafes’ bring together a group of mature readers of all walks of life to meet over coffee to share their impressions and analysis about the book of the month. On this blessed rainy day of 28^th September, we discussed an existential work of Albert Camus: “La chute.”

Bouquineurs is a real life group of people, where each one outside the meeting has their own life, their own worries. So don’t think this is a metaphysical bourgeois batch, far from it, the expression of each individual carries a whole background that enrich your personal views.

At the meetings you can expect to participate in a round table to introduce everyone and then the debate starts!  The academic discussion may seem to a lot of people to be ‘boring’—but the group members agree that human thought, as complicated as it looks, is a sunbeam of words that lightens the doubts.

How do “Bouquineurs” choose ‘the book of the month’?

At the closing of each meeting, the group puts forth book suggestions to be voted on.  The only condition for the book of the month is the language: French. As many readers and members have different native fluencies: Arabic, Amazigh, French, English and Spanish; French was chosen as the language for book discussions. October’s book of the month: “Love in the Time of Cholera” by the Colombian author Gabriel García Márquez.

Famous literary masterpieces and philosophical works, that everyone can appreciate, are the books of choice for the group. By bringing a different kind of culture to Moroccan society, “Bouquineurs” is a laudable initiative, which will create new readers who never had the opportunity to discover the pleasant and instructive hobby of reading, and dive into the oceans of knowledge.