Ben Jelloun, Tahar (b. 1944). Moroccan novelist. Born in Fez, he moved at 18 with his family to Tangier where he attended the French lycée. Both towns were to play significant roles in his poetry and fiction. He then studied in Rabat, during which time he collaborated on the journal Souffles and published his first poems, Hommes sous linceul de silence (1971), and a first novel, Harrouda (1973). He obtained a doctorate in psychiatric social work in France, his thesis being based on case histories of North African immigrant workers whom Ben Jelloun had counselled, mostly with regard to the sexual dysfunction they tended to suffer while in France. His second novel, La Réclusion solitaire (1976), fictionalized some of these case histories and his dissertation was subsequently published as La plus haute des solitudes (1977).
On the surface, Ben Jelloun's works are readily accessible tales, and yet one cannot have a full appreciation of his work without some idea of how Arabic language, Koranic imagery, and other aspects of traditional Moroccan culture—including the literary traits of errancy, delirium, fantasy, the quest voyage, and narrative framing found in the Mille et une Nuits and other classics of Eastern literature—have entered into French discourse.
Ben Jelloun's earlier novels include: Harrouda (1973), a haunting ‘psycho-spatial’ tale of the quite different urban experiences of Fez and Tangier; Moha le fou, Moha le sage (1978), the confused and tortured ravings of a man who yet speaks eloquently on behalf of the downtrodden and disenfranchised ‘wretched of the Earth’; La Prière de l'absent (1981), which describes, against the backdrop of Moroccan politics and the legendary lives of the resistance patriots Krim and Ma-al-Aynayn, a quest to the south of Morocco by two mentally troubled men, Boby and Sindibad, an old woman, and an infant of destiny who has come under their care; and L'Écrivain public (1983), a remarkable but lesser-known novel whose story of the travails of a physical and psychological invalid is cleverly disclosed in letters, diaries, reminiscences, and dreams.
His most successful books to date have been L'Enfant de sable (1985) and its sequel La Nuit sacrée (1987, Prix Goncourt). The two books describe the psychological misshaping of a girl who is raised as a boy by her father and her subsequent rediscovery and affirmation of her female identity which she retrieves through a series of violent and erotic experiences. There followed Jour de silence à Tanger (1990), which is the interior monologue of an old man whose waning days are articulated primarily in listless introspection as he relives ancient, often erotic, memories; and Les Yeux baissés (1991), in which a girl, in an itinerary similar to that taken by Ben Jelloun and other francophone writers, moves from rural Morocco to France, becomes competent in French, and yearns to become a writer.
Ben Jelloun's poetry, ranging from brief enigmatic texts to surrealistic prose poems, is rich in imagery and highly lyrical. Representative poems may be found in Les Amandiers sont morts de leurs blessures, suivi de A l'insu du souvenir (1983), which includes such earlier collections as Cicatrices du soleil (1972) and Le Discours du chameau (1974).
[Eric Sellin]
Bibliography
- A. Tenkoul, Littérature marocaine d'écriture française (1985)
- L. Mouzouni, Le Roman marocain de langue française (1987)
