In the life of Azaribal, Hassan Ouarid creates a vast field for all the constraints that imagination faces in Moroccan literary writings. The journey—spanning over 120 pages—is short, yet it captures visions and observes symbols from the deep-rooted memory and culture of Morocco.
This exquisite journey, titled "A Donkey’s Life Story" (Sīrat Ḥimār), is woven by Hassan Ouarid not only as a literary man but also as a historian, an administrator, a politician, and a Moroccan whose identity drives him to confess that the history of Morocco is too deep to be confined to a specific period. Hassan Ouarid says through the voice of his work: {"...that his work is an attempt to rehabilitate a period in the life of Morocco..."} The work, published in 2014, attempts to connect the country's present with its past, a past that extends beyond the arrival of the Arabs, reaching into ancient civilizations that have influenced and continue to shape the soul and personality of an entire nation.
The novel "A Donkey's Life Story" centers on Azaribal, a young man born and raised in Volubilis (Walili). His upbringing prepared him sufficiently for the path of knowledge and thought, prompting him to travel to neighboring centers of learning, knowledge, and civilization. He journeyed to Carthage and Rome to drink from the river of philosophy and various political and legal sciences, acquiring a substantial amount of knowledge and understanding.
He later returned to Volubilis as a young man aspiring to achieve dreams his father barely touched: to become a highly-placed lawyer or politician among the country's elite. However, the insights and understanding he gained from his travels—which exposed the realities of societal constraints—prevented him from becoming what his father desired. How could he be a righteous judge, knowing that the judiciary was rarely free of malice and deceit? Or how could he enter politics, knowing the required cunning and trickery it demanded?
At one point, the perpetually rational and thoughtful Azaribal fell into an intense, forbidden love with the city elder’s wife. Knowing their relationship would be shameful in the eyes of the city and a disappointment to his family, Azaribal and the elder's wife decided, with the help of the elder's maid, to drink a concoction believed to turn them into birds, allowing them to consummate their love without obstacles.
But what happened next was a complete mistake: instead of turning into a bird, Azaribal was transformed into a donkey; his humanity was effaced.
Azaribal reflects on his fate:
"I looked in a mirror and found myself a donkey, complete in every description, differing from other donkeys only in one thing that had become the source of my suffering: my capacity for thought. The matter would have been easier had I been deprived of thought, living among the donkeys with no difference from them. Yet, I will live among donkeys as a donkey, doing what they do, carrying the loads they carry, and differing from them in one thing: my ability to think. It pains me that I cannot properly express the feelings surging within my chest and the visions filling my soul. And here begin the adventures that I wish to impart to you, O reader, so do not abandon me."
"A Donkey's Life Story" is a novel filled with numerous meanings, a purely social and symbolic work, saturated with cultural and political significance, prompting the reader to ask many questions: Why this...? What if...? How...? But the most important of all: Why was Azaribal transformed?