Moroccan reader goes viral
- Moroccan bookseller Mohamed Aziz posted that he read over 4,000 books after leaving school, sharing his reading journey online. (x.com) - His post gathered roughly 2,000 likes and the line 'I have lived more than 4,000 lives' circulated widely. (x.com) - World Book Day chatter amplified his story as an example of reading’s personal impact across social feeds. ( )
A Moroccan bookseller’s claim that he has read more than 4,000 books spread widely online this week as World Book Day posts circulated across social media. (x.com) The bookseller, Mohamed Aziz of Rabat, wrote that he left school at 15 and kept reading on his own, adding, “I have lived more than 4,000 lives.” The post drew about 2,000 likes on X and was reposted into World Book Day conversations on April 23. (x.com; x.com) Aziz has been the subject of profiles for years in Rabat’s medina, where multiple outlets have described him as a longtime street bookseller who began in 1963 with nine books on a rug and later opened a permanent shop in 1967. Those accounts also say he reads for six to eight hours a day and works in Arabic, French, English and Spanish. (moroccoworldnews.com; news18.com) The story landed on April 23, World Book Day, when readers, publishers and literacy groups were already posting tributes to books and reading. In that stream, Aziz’s line about “4,000 lives” became a compact way to talk about reading as self-education rather than formal schooling. (x.com; unesco.org) Morocco’s literacy rates have improved sharply over time but remain uneven, which gives extra weight to stories centered on reading and access to books. World Bank data, drawing on UNESCO statistics, lists Morocco’s adult literacy rate at 77.35% in 2022, up from 30% in 1982. (data.worldbank.org; fred.stlouisfed.org) Aziz has framed his bookstall as an answer to the education he could not afford as a teenager. In a 2019 Morocco World News profile, he said selling books was his “revenge” on childhood poverty and said he would stay “till everyone can read.” (moroccoworldnews.com) Some details in the viral retellings vary by outlet, including Aziz’s exact age and whether he has read more than 4,000 or more than 5,000 books. The broad outline is consistent across profiles: a Rabat bookseller, decades in the same trade, and a life organized around reading after leaving school young. (news18.com; curlytales.com) By Thursday, the viral version of Aziz’s story was less about a single post than about a sentence people kept repeating: read enough books, and one life starts to look much larger. (x.com)
