Mririda n’Ait Attik

Mririda n’Ait Attik was born in the village of Megdaz, in the Tassaout valley, Mririda married at a very early age, but soon fled her unhappy life at home to become an itinerant oral poet and performer. She toured from market to market, improvising and performing her poetry, which she composed in Tashelhit.[2] Mririda was the pen name she used on stage, and her real name is unknown. She was illiterate and never committed her poems to paper. Her poetry dealt with topics tabu at the time (particularly coming from a woman poet), such as divorce, love between women, household problems, and unrequited love, and she openly voiced her inner thoughts as a means of resistance and rebellion against a culture of patriarchy.[3][4] During the 1940s, she is said to have been a courtesan in the souk (marketplace) in Azilal, and was famed for the songs she sang to the men who visited her house. No one knows when or where she died.

• Les Chants de la Tassaout de Mririda N’aït Attik (1959, tr. René Euloge) • Songs of Mririda by Mririda n’Ait Attik (1974, translated from Euloge's version in French by Daniel Halpern and Paula Paley) • Tassawt Voices, by Mririda n-Ayt Attiq and René Euloge (2001, translated from Euloge's version in French by Michael Peyron)