Moroccan critic attacks cultural board

Moroccan literary critic Mohammed Mouatassim has taken to Facebook to criticise a decision by the Moroccan Book Prize to exclude him from its judging panel. "For the second time, my name has been removed from the judging panel for the Moroccan Book Prize," he said in a social media post on Wednesday. The critic launched a scathing attack on “pseudo-intellectuals” he said were “hampering cultural development” with “unimaginable pettiness.” Mouatassim's books are well known in Arab arts. He is a member of the Moroccan Writers' Union and the head of the Internet and Digital and International Relations committee at the Arab Union for Internet Writers. Apart from his award-winning work in Arabic literary criticism, he has also published celebrated translations of William Blake and Spanish republican poet Federico García Lorca.