ing in Arabic tends to be "shunned by intellectuals and readers" at the 'center' of the Arab world, the Mashreq or eastern reaches (Sellin & Abdel-Jaouad 169).
The emergence of Francophone literature came about in two ways--in connection with the selective education of the upper classes during French rule and in connection with the movement for independence when nationalists of the 1950s "used French as a privileged weapon against the colonial order" (Kaye & Zoubir 69). The long prior history of French in the Maghreb had been one of domination and collaboration. The French Empire was, however, merely the last in a long line of those who invaded and dominated the region--including the Romans, Vandals, Phoenicians, Arabs, Turks and Spanish--so that the region was perpetually "overlaid by veneer after veneer of foreign dominance" which, however, it repeatedly rejected (Sellin & Abdel-Jaouad 161). With each successive invasion the Maghreb either retained mere traces of the dominant culture or incorporated elements of it completely--as with Islam.
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