This paper examines the Moroccan author Mohammed Shukri’s 1973 autobiographical novel Al-khobz al-Hafi as a harbinger of the February 20th Movement. Al-khobz al-Hafi, first published in English under the title For Bread Alone, follows the life of the young Shukri from his childhood until the age of twenty, the point at which he first entered school. According to Nirvana Tanoukhi from Stanford University, “Al-khobz al-Hafi was rejected by several publishers and was not printed until 1982 through a Casablanca press at the author’s expense. Even after it was published the Arabic version was initially censored for what was perceived as pornographic content and dismissed by many critics as nonliterary writing.”[1]The first two decades of his life are defined by parental abuse, abject poverty, addiction to alcohol and prostitution, a living made by theft, and an existence sans rights. Shukri unequivocally delineates these truths with complete translucence and without apology or excuse; Shukri paints himself neither as an antagonist nor a protagonist, but rather as one out of whom circumstance had created a degenerate. His story serves as a microcosm of the experiences of all Morocco’s have-nots, illuminating the immense inequalities in Moroccan society. In Al-khobz al-Hafi, Moroccans had, for the first time, a work of literature that did not romanticize the state of affairs within the country. Though the book was banned, its subversive influence was tangible. In fact, the novel stirred up such revolutionary sentiment at the time it was written that the Moroccan government specifically spoke out against it. During the February 20th movement, many emerging radical artists, including Abdellah Taïa, cited Shukri’s work as inspiration. These artists were not alone; especially among the literate, Shukri’s manifesto was employed as a means of explaining just how extensive were the inequalities in Morocco. Once banned, Al-khobz al-Hafi stands today as a tool of change in Morocco.