Background
Tahar Ben Jelloun was born on December 1, 1944, in Fez, French protectorate in Morocco (now Morocco).
Tangier, Morocco
Lycée Regnault
Rabat, Morocco
Mohammed V University
National Order of the Legion of Honour
Prix Goncourt
International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award
Paris, France
Le Monde (newspaper)
Paris, France
University of Paris
(In this lyrical, hallucinatory novel set in Morocco, Taha...)
In this lyrical, hallucinatory novel set in Morocco, Tahar Ben Jelloun offers an imaginative and radical critique of contemporary Arab social customs and Islamic law. The Sand Child tells the story of a Moroccan father's effort to thwart the consequences of Islam's inheritance laws regarding female offspring. Already the father of seven daughters, Hajji Ahmed determines that his eighth child will be a male. Accordingly, the infant, a girl, is named Mohammed Ahmed and raised as a young man with all the privileges granted exclusively to men in traditional Arab-Islamic societies. As she matures, however, Ahmed's desire to have children marks the beginning of her sexual evolution, and as a woman named Zahra, Ahmed begins to explore her true sexual identity. Drawing on the rich Arabic oral tradition, Ben Jelloun relates the extraordinary events of Ahmed's life through a professional storyteller and the listeners who have gathered in a Marrakesh market square in the 1950s to hear his tale. A poetic vision of power, colonialism, and gender in North Africa, The Sand Child has been justifiably celebrated around the world as a daring and significant work of international fiction.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0801864402/?tag=2022091-20
1985
(Casablanca and Tangier provide the backdrops for Corrupti...)
Casablanca and Tangier provide the backdrops for Corruption, and erotic tale of morality about Mourad, the last honest man in Morocco. After a lifetime of resistance, Mourad finally gives in to the demands of his materialistic wife and accepts “commissions” for his work: just one envelope stuffed with cash, then another. Ben Jelloun’s compelling novel evokes the dangers of succumbing to the daily temptations of modern life, as Mourad lives the consequences of betraying his existence. Casablanca and Tangier provide the backdrops for Corruption, and erotic tale of morality about Mourad, the last honest man in Morocco. After a lifetime of resistance, Mourad finally gives in to the demands of his materialistic wife and accepts “commissions” for his work: just one envelope stuffed with cash, then another. Ben Jelloun’s compelling novel evokes the dangers of succumbing to the daily temptations of modern life, as Mourad lives the consequences of betraying his existence.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1565842960/?tag=2022091-20
1995
(Writing to respond to his ten-year-old daughter's questio...)
Writing to respond to his ten-year-old daughter's questions about racism, the author skillfully distills this complicated issue for a child, offering parents advice on how to explain bigotry to their own children.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/156584534X/?tag=2022091-20
1998
(An immediate and critically acclaimed bestseller in Franc...)
An immediate and critically acclaimed bestseller in France and winner of the 2004 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, This Blinding Absence of Light is the latest work by Tahar Ben Jelloun, the first North African winner of the Prix Goncourt and winner of the 1994 Prix Mahgreb. Ben Jelloun crafts a horrific real-life narrative into fiction to tell the appalling story of the desert concentration camps in which King Hassan II of Morocco held his political enemies under the most harrowing conditions. Not until September 1991, under international pressure, was Hassan’s regime forced to open these desert hellholes. A handful of survivors—living cadavers who had shrunk by over a foot in height—emerged from the six-by-three-foot cells in which they had been held underground for decades. Working closely with one of the survivors, Ben Jelloun eschewed the traditional novel format and wrote a book in the simplest of language, reaching always for the most basic of words, the most correct descriptions. The result is a shocking novel that explores both the limitlessness of inhumanity and the impossible endurance of the human will. An immediate and critically acclaimed bestseller in France and winner of the 2004 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, This Blinding Absence of Light is the latest work by Tahar Ben Jelloun, the first North African winner of the Prix Goncourt and winner of the 1994 Prix Mahgreb. Ben Jelloun crafts a horrific real-life narrative into fiction to tell the appalling story of the desert concentration camps in which King Hassan II of Morocco held his political enemies under the most harrowing conditions. Not until September 1991, under international pressure, was Hassan’s regime forced to open these desert hellholes. A handful of survivors—living cadavers who had shrunk by over a foot in height—emerged from the six-by-three-foot cells in which they had been held underground for decades. Working closely with one of the survivors, Ben Jelloun eschewed the traditional novel format and wrote a book in the simplest of language, reaching always for the most basic of words, the most correct descriptions. The result is a shocking novel that explores both the limitlessness of inhumanity and the impossible endurance of the human will.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1565847237/?tag=2022091-20
2000
(In an accessible question-and-answer format, Islam Explai...)
In an accessible question-and-answer format, Islam Explained clarifies the main tenets of Islam, the major landmarks in Islamic history, and the current politics of Islamic fundamentalism. The book also sheds light on the key words that have come to dominate the media—terrorist, crusade, jihad, fundamentalist, fatwa—offering lucid and balanced explanations, not only for youngsters but also for the general reader. Islam Explained is at once an essential introduction to one of the world’s great religions and a cry for tolerance and understanding in deeply troubled times. In an accessible question-and-answer format, Islam Explained clarifies the main tenets of Islam, the major landmarks in Islamic history, and the current politics of Islamic fundamentalism. The book also sheds light on the key words that have come to dominate the media—terrorist, crusade, jihad, fundamentalist, fatwa—offering lucid and balanced explanations, not only for youngsters but also for the general reader. Islam Explained is at once an essential introduction to one of the world’s great religions and a cry for tolerance and understanding in deeply troubled times.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1565848977/?tag=2022091-20
2002
(From "Morocco's greatest living author" (The Guardian), a...)
From "Morocco's greatest living author" (The Guardian), an internationally bestselling novel of universal appeal—about the powerful pull of home and the lengths to which a parent will go to bring his family together Mohammed has spent the past forty years working in France. As he approaches retirement, he takes stock of his life—his devotion to Islam and to his assimilated children—and decides to return to Morocco, where he spends his life’s savings building the biggest house in the village and waiting for his children and grandchildren to come be with him. A heartbreaking novel about parents and children, A Palace in the Old Village captures the sometimes stark contrasts between old- and new-world values, and immigrant’s abiding pursuit of home.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0143118471/?tag=2022091-20
2010
Tahar Ben Jelloun was born on December 1, 1944, in Fez, French protectorate in Morocco (now Morocco).
Jelloun was educated at the Arabic-French bilingual elementary school. He then attended the Lycée Regnault till 1962. He also studied philosophy at the Mohammed V University in Rabat. In 1975 Jelloun received Doctor of Philosophy degree in social psychology from the University of Paris.
Early in his career, Jelloun worked as a philosophy professor in Morocco. After that he was one of the group, running the literary magazine Souffles in the mid-1960s. Later he participated in the student rebellion against “the repressive and violent acts” of the Moroccan police. In 1966, he was forced into military camp as his punishment. The first collection of his poems was published 5 years later. After that Jelloun moved to Paris, where he began his work as a writer at Le Monde in 1972.
Jelloun’s novel The Sand Child outlines some of the problems faced by men and women living in a traditional Arab society. The novel relates the story of a man who, when presented with an eighth daughter in a society that values sons, names the girl Ahmed and declares her to be a boy.
The Sacred Night continues Ahmed’s story. By the age of twenty, the 1989 novel explains, the girl-in-disguise has resumed a feminine identity under the name Zahra. However, she is still entrapped by her upbringing.
Jelloun’s third novel to be translated into English, Silent Day in Tangier (1991), continues some of the general themes established in his earlier work, but takes a very different direction than did either The Sand Child or The Sacred Night. Silent Day in Tangier is the story of an old, retired, and nameless Moroccan living in the port city of Tangier.
With Downcast Eyes, Jelloun’s 1993 novel, revisits the theme of not belonging.
Jelloun’s novel Corruption, according to a critic writing in Publishers Weekly, “weaves an intricate tale about a Moroccan man’s slow capitulation to the lure of infidelity and bribery.”
His later works include This Blinding Absence of Light, Islam Explained, The Sleeping Beauty in the Wood, The Last Friend, Leaving Tangier, A Palace in the Old Village and The Happy Marriage.
During his career, Jelloun has worked as a contributor to periodicals, including the New Perspectives Quarterly, the Nation, the UNESCO Courier and the World Press Review.
(An immediate and critically acclaimed bestseller in Franc...)
2000(From "Morocco's greatest living author" (The Guardian), a...)
2010(Writing to respond to his ten-year-old daughter's questio...)
1998(The award-winning novelist and author of the internationa...)
1984(In an accessible question-and-answer format, Islam Explai...)
2002(In this lyrical, hallucinatory novel set in Morocco, Taha...)
1985(In the early 1990s, young Moroccans gather regularly in a...)
2009(Casablanca and Tangier provide the backdrops for Corrupti...)
1995Quotes from others about the person
“Mr. Jelloun combined the gifts of the traditional Arab storyteller—that ability to play fantastic variations upon the simplest of themes—with remarkable philosophical insight, often reminiscent of the monologues of Samuel Beckett. Like Beckett, too, Mr. Jelloun’s favored ground is not the broad historical sweep but the intense probing of an individual mind.” - reviewer for the Economist