Guest of the ilb 2001, 2002
Tahar Ben Jelloun was born in Fez, Morocco in
1944. As a son of a cloth merchant, he had a modest family
upbringing. He was educated at a French high school, the Regnault
lycée in Tangier. After studying philosophy in Rabat, Ben Jelloun
initially worked as a teacher in Tetouan and Casablanca. In the
mid sixties he joined a circle of intellectuals and artists with links
to the magazine 'Souffles', a Maghrebian literary and cultural magazine
and its founder, Abdellatif Laâbi. Ben Jelloun published many
texts in this magazine during the end of the sixties. In 1966,
the young poet’s involvement in the student revolts and public
uprisings against the Moroccan police meant that he was forcibly
recruited into a military camp. Five years later he published his
first poetry volume 'Hommes sous linceul de silence' and shortly later
he emigrated to Paris. His PhD thesis, which was published in
1977 and entitled 'La plus haute des solitudes', was a widely acclaimed
study which investigated the situation of Maghreb immigrants in
France. Through his great political commitment he became a
leading voice championing the cause of North African immigrants.
Ben Jelloun’s literary breakthrough came in 1985 with the
publication of his novel 'L’enfant de sable'. This was followed
by 'La nuit sacrée', for which in 1987 he became the first Maghreb
writer to receive the 'Prix Goncourt'. Both novels were
subsequently translated into 43 languages.
Tahar Ben Jelloun’s novels criticize society and rail against
oppression by the state and religion, in the ways experienced by him in
his home country. According to him, he does not take issue with Islam
as "a wonderful culture and great civilisation", but with "those, who
exploit Islam in order to dominate women and children, in order to
arrange society in which men exercise all the rights but hardly have
any duties". Whereas in his first novel 'Harrouda', published in 1973,
the narrator used the naive, collective "we", in subsequent works Ben
Jelloun often slipped into the role of a female protagonist to
demonstrate that "the relationship between a man and a woman [...] is
not motivated by affection, but by a power struggle and by violence".
Ben Jelloun has spoken out against racism on many occasions. As early
as 1984, in a theoretical essay entitled 'L’hospitalité française', he
reported French racist attacks on North African immigrant workers. With
'Le racisme expliqué à ma fille', published in 1988, the father of four
children has produced a family education book which has been translated
into 25 languages and is a bestseller not only in France.
Tahar Ben Jelloun’s twelfth novel 'Cette aveuglante absence de lumière'
was published in January 2001 and was awarded the IMPAC DUBLIN Literary
Award. This shattering report on the penal colony of Tazmamart, where
from 1971 onwards 40 out of 58 political prisoners died in
indescribable agony, triggered off a wide debate in France about the
regime of the Moroccan King Hassan who died in 1999. Tahar Ben Jelloun
lives in Paris.
© international literature festival berlin
Tahar Ben Jelloun online: www.taharbenjelloun.org | 
