Literary meeting with Kenizé Mourad at the Lyceum Club of Rabat

The Lyceum Club of Rabat (member of the International Association of Women's Lyceum Clubs) recently organized a literary meeting with an internationally renowned guest, the writer Kenizé Mourad, around her book "In the City of Gold and Silver".

This event is part of an exchange and friendship visit with the Lyceum Club of Carthage, which hosted Madame Kenizé Mourad last April in Tunis around her bestseller "From the Part of the Dead Princess".

Fourteen Tunisians made the trip to Morocco, as well as two members of the Lyceum Club of Vanves. They were welcomed by Selwa Belcadi Chraibi, president of the Lyceum Club of Rabat, Nadia Benslimane, vice-president, Narjess Benkirane, coordinator of this literary meeting, and by the members of the Lyceum Club of Rabat.

The Lyceum Club of Rabat is the first Lyceum club in Africa to have been created; its mission is to promote friendship between peoples through art and culture.
The meeting took place in a friendly atmosphere in the presence of about a hundred readers seduced by the author's style, combining historical precision and romance in her novels.

A certain number of personalities also participated: Her Highness Princess Soraya Rajkumari, Naz Lucky, cultural attaché of the Turkish Embassy, Colonel Major Hassan Skalli, director of the Mohamed V Mausoleum, and Mohammed Semmar, specialist in the historical heritage of Rabat-Salé.

In her welcome speech, Selwa Belcadi Chraibi recalled the genesis of the creation of the Rabat Club in 2018 and presented its activities.

Narjess Benkirane, at the origin of the project for the creation of the Tunisian Lyceum Club, shared "the desire of the two clubs to make Fatima Al Fihriya the Kairouanaise the common thread of the meeting by going to Fez, in the footsteps of the founder of the oldest university in the world, the University of Al Quaraouiyine".

From Istanbul to Lucknow, known as "the city of gold and silver", from Kairouan to Fez, with Mourad who knows so well how to tell and highlight the plural Muslim Woman, it is a whole part of our common history that is evoked during these meetings".
After the presentation of the author and the novel, the moderator, Amina Achour, gave the floor to the public for the debate.

Journalist and novelist, Kenizé Hussain de Kotwara is the daughter of a Turkish princess (granddaughter of Sultan Murad V by her mother Selma Sultane, married to an Indian rajah, Raja Syed Sajid Husain Ali de Kotwara).

Her novel "In the City of Gold and Silver" relates the true story of a Muslim Indian queen, Begum Hazrat Mahal, who, in 1857, led the first insurrection against British rule: the Sepoy Mutiny.

To the question about the reasons that pushed the author to write about the little-known figure of Hazrat Mahal, the answer came naturally: no book had been written about this heroine for two hundred years, apart from small booklets.

"Perhaps because, deep down, it is not accepted that a woman such as Hazrat Mahal should be in the position she held against the British," she added.

H.T