Tahar Ben Jelloun

Agnes Hafez-Ergaut (University of Tasmania)

Ed. by David Houston Jones, University of Exeter, Ziad Elmarsafy, King's College London
The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 8.1.1: North African Writing and Culture: Arabic, Anglophone, Francophone, Hispanic.
Vol. editors: Kate Averis (University of Western Australia), Lia Brozgal (University of California, Los Angeles), Helen Rachel Cousins (Birmingham Newman University), Ziad Elmarsafy (King's College London), Claire Gallien (Université Paul Valéry Montpellier 3), Siobhán McIlvanney (King's College London), Dalia Mostafa (University of Manchester), Nora Parr (SOAS, University of London), Rita Sakr (Maynooth University)

Dates

Born 1 Dec 1944
Activity 1976-ongoing

Places

Born in Morocco
Active in France; Morocco

Activities

Primary

Novelist
Poet

Resources

Ben Jelloun's Works

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Occupation: public writer. According to the title of his autobiographical narrative,

L’Ecrivain public

(

The Public Writer

) (a title that bridges the tension between the solitary act of writing and its social importance), this is probably what Tahar Ben Jelloun would answer when asked what he does for a living, though “storyteller (-writer)”, in the tradition of the story-telling vagrants captivating their audience at the Djemaa el Fna square in Marrakech (Morocco) on market days, or “poet”, would be suitable too. He could also say ‘psychotherapist’, after being awarded his doctorate in social psychiatry. But writing, a necessity as well as a source of suffering, is his single most enduring pursuit:

L’exorcisme par les mots est mon bouclier, mon voile, ma demeure et ma

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3170 words

Citation: Hafez-Ergaut, Agnes. "Tahar Ben Jelloun". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 16 March 2012 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=12331, accessed 22 November 2024.]

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