In the 1950s, Moroccan authors noted that writing in French allowed them a certain distance from their traditional culture as well a linguistic tool with which to challenge the oppressive French colonial regime. Authors wrote from the margins of their own society in order to define, what would become after independence in 1956, a new Moroccan postcolonial literary consciousness. Driss Chraïbi’s 1954 novel Le Passé Simple is considered a monumental text in the Moroccan, and vaster Maghrebian, francophone canon. Chraibi’s first novel set the tone for the first generation of Moroccan francophone authors after independence. As Morocco transited into the independence era of the late 1950s-early 1960s, authors writing in French became increasingly known for their resistance. They felt it their duty to attack the political hypocrisy that particularly Chraïbi believed was becoming endemic in the country. Le Passé simple set the tone for a literature that would thereafter criticize and revolt against tradition, postcolonial corruption, and the inequalities in Moroccan society. This seminal novel defined a place for the literary dialogue of the engaged writer; a space that continues to be reworked, reviewed and revitalized in the contemporary era. This paper will consider Chraïbi’s legacy within the scope of francophone writing in the Morocco of the new millennium.