Tricontinentalism in Recent Moroccan Intellectual History: The Case of Souffles

The 1960s phenomenon of tricontinentalism, originating in Havana in 1966, had its strongest politico-artistic impact on the African side of the Atlantic in Morocco. We can trace this through the avant-garde journal Souffles, published in Rabat between 1966 and 1972. The intellectual space that Souffles came to dominate lay at the crossroads of different anti-colonial ideologies: both Arabist and keen to promote Berber culture; both Moroccan and Maghrebi as it called for a new culture in North Africa; both pan-Africanist and pan-Arabist; and exhibiting signs of ‘Maoisant’ Marxism to boot. It is thanks largely to the ideological scope of Souffles that Morocco became a pivot for the Tricontinental Movement worldwide.