Tahar Ben Jelloun is a Moroccan writer. The entirety of his work is written in French, although his first language is Arabic. He became known for his 1985 novel L’Enfant de Sable. Today he lives in Paris, France, and continues to write. He has been nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature.
Early life and career
Tahar Ben Jelloun was born in Morocco in December 1944. As a child, he attended an Arabic-French bilingual elementary school. He then studied in the Lycée Regnault in Tangier, Morocco, until he was 18 years old. He studied philosophy at Mohammed V University in Rabat. After having been a philosophy professor in Morocco, he joined the group who ran the literary magazine Souffles in the mid-1960s, and he wrote many pieces for the cultural magazine. He later participated in the student rebellion against "the repressive and violent acts" of the Moroccan police. In 1966, he was then forced into military camp as his punishment. Five years later, his first poems were published in Hommes sous linceul de silence. Shortly thereafter he moved to Paris, France, and in 1972 began writing for Le Monde. He received his doctorate in social psychiatry in 1975.
Writing career
Ben Jelloun's 1985 novel L’Enfant de Sable brought widespread attention. In 1987 he received the Prix Goncourt for his novel La Nuit Sacrée, making him the first Maghreb author to receive the award. His 1996 novel Les raisins de la galère is a reflection on racism and traditional Muslim ideas about women's place. The protagonist, Nadia, fights racism and exclusion to find her place in French society. In 1993 he received the journalistic award Golden Doves for Peace issued by the Italian Research Center Archivio Disarmo. Ben Jelloun was awarded the International Dublin Literary Award for Cette aveuglante absence de lumière in 2004. In 2005 he received the Prix Ulysse for his entire body of his work. In September 2006, Ben Jelloun was awarded a special prize for "peace and friendship between people" at the Lazio between Europe and the Mediterranean Festival. On 1 February 2008, Nicolas Sarkozy awarded him the Cross of Grand Officer of the Légion d'honneur. In Africa, his novel Le mariage de plaisir was shortlisted for the GPLA 2016.
