I taught English language and literature courses for a few years in Casablanca, at the Faculty of Letters, Ain Chok , before moving to Agadir, where I am teaching now  at the Faculty of Letters, Ibnou-Zohr. I am still enrolled in Ain Chok as a PhD in Women Studies, and I plan to defend my thesis in November 2004.

It has been fun contributing to this year’s British Council Prize for Moroccan Writers of English. I thank the jury for appreciating my work, and for awarding me the Prize in poetry. I also thank the British Council director, Steve McNulty, and the British Council staff in Rabat for the cute ceremony given for the occasion.

If the British Council is a sensible way of promoting English in the non-English speaking world, and of strengthening educational co-operation between the UK and other nations, it is undoubtedly also a space of freedom and expression for the Moroccan writers who feel at home with the English language. The linguistic and cultural diversity of us Moroccans should not be a hindrance but a source of wealth and inspiration. I hope that the British Council Prize and other prizes at the continental level will continue, and that a whole body of Moroccan literature ' of English expression ' will see the day.

I also believe that the work of these Moroccan writers should be encouraged and published. On June 4th, I left Rabat and flew back to Agadir and to my end of the year exams with the agreeable feeling that the British Council is seriously pondering this question.