The British Council in Rabat has been of great help to Moroccan scholars over the last twenty years. Personally, I have been given many opportunities by the British Council to promote both my academic career and my career as a beginning writer. My visit to Norwich in 1986 enabled me to defend my MA thesis the following year, and my three visits to London in the years 1992 and 1993 were decisive in bringing my PhD dissertation to completion within a few months.

As far as my writing career is concerned, I was offered an opportunity to attend the 15th Oxford Conference on "From Critical Reading to Creative Writing", which took place in April 1999. Now I have won the British Council prize: this is an honour to me, certainly, and a great moral support; but it is also a recognition of the importance of what Moroccan writers in English are producing - in default of any recognition from other bodies here in Morocco.

Excerpts from CV

			PhD in English Literature in 1994
			Published the following creative works:

1. Graffiti (Collected short stories) 1997
2. Between the Lines (Collected short stories) 1998
3. The Lost Generation (Collected short stories) 2000
4. Tangier's Eyes on America (Travel account) 2001

			Attended the 15th Oxford Conference on "From Critical Reading to Creative Writing" 9-15 April 2000
			Fulbright Grant to research the short story theory in Washington State University (Fall 1999)