HENAN HARIT

Morocco - Aziza Yahdih Omar, who was born in the city of Tan-Tan, southern Morocco, is one of the Moroccan women, who devote their lives to defending culture, literature, and women’s issues. She founded the League of Female Writers of Morocco in 2012 to bring together women writers from different regions. On January 28, 2022, she died of cancer. Everyone, who knew her closely, felt her tenderness, calmness, love for poetry, and her dedication to work to achieve her goals and develop her cultural project. NuJINHA spoke to her friends.

“We are determined to move forward with her dream”

Zahra Azz spoke about the late novelist, storyteller, and president of the League of Female Writers of Morocco. “Her death left a hole in the Moroccan cultural area and great pain in all of us. But as members of the league, we promise her that we are determined to move forward with her dream, so that we may all struggle to defend the causes of literary women. She founded the League of Female Writers of Morocco and established its branches in European countries: France, Belgium, and Italy. She tried to embrace female creators in different literary genres, including articles, poetry, story, novel, and criticism. She obtained a doctorate in media and communication in Madrid, wrote for many media outlets, and worked as a professor and administrative consultant at one of the private press institutes in Casablanca.”

“She put her stamp on history”

Emphasizing that Aziza Yahdih Omar is one of the women who put their stamp on history, Zehra Azz said, “Aziza Yahdih always believed that women writers make women’s issues heard better and enable women to achieve their rights. She published several collections of poetry including “Henna, Sahara, Safran” (1993), “The revelation of Tan Tan” (1998), and “My present to you sir”.”

She had projects for future

Journalist and poet Malika Wilyali, one of the best friends of Aziza Yahdih Omar, spoke to NuJINHA about her friend. “She took on all difficult tasks. She had a strong patient personality. She devoted her life to the league and cultural activities. And she was keen on her cultural project. She was a child in the body of a woman. She chose to write to survive the pain; she turned her pains into poems. In her poems, she tells the pains of women and her love for her country.”

Malika Wilyali told us that she met Aziza Yahdih Omar a month before her death. “She was very optimistic and was thinking about her future projects.  This was our last meeting.”