ХУДОЖНЄ ПИСЬМО ЯК ДОСВІД ПРОФЕСІЙНОЇ ПОДОРОЖІ: МИСТЕЦЬКИЙ ДІАЛОГ АБДЕЛЬКЕБІРА КАТІБІ Й ТАГАРА БЕН ДЖЕЛЛУНА

The article is devoted to the concept of writing as the experience of a francophone writer’s professional journey in the creative methods of two French-speaking artists of Moroccan origin, Abdelkébir Khatibi and Tahar Ben Jelloun. In particular, the study analyses the key aspects of A. Katibi’s essay A Professional Stranger (1997), in which the author formulates the concept of a francophone literary text as an expressive transcultural discourse that, due to the incorporation of various linguistic and cultural codes, tends to appear as a cultural palimpsest, while the author of such a text is positioned as a professional stranger who practices writing as a kind of a professional journey in order to explore linguistic and cultural universes. Based on the analysisof several plots, motifs and images in the prose of A. Katibi’s colleague, T. Ben Jelloun (The Blind Angel, 1992), Shelter for the Poor, 1999), Don Quixote in Tangier, 2005), it is found that in these texts the author’s cultural journey is embodied through the concerts of an odyssey, a literary internship and a cultural journey, while the figure of the writer acquires the status of a translator between cultures, as well as a cultural interpreter. The study reveals some conceptual points of intersection in the creative methods of these two Franco-Maghreb artists and paves the way for the further application of transcultural concepts as a prism for reading contemporary francophone texts.