Biography

Tahar Ben Jelloun (born December 1, 1944) is a Moroccan writer. The entirety of his work is written in French, although his first language is Darija or Maghrebi Arabic. Today he resides in Paris, France, and continues to write. He has been nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature.

Ben Jelloun's 1985 novel L’Enfant de Sable (The Sand Child) brought widespread attention. In 1987 he received the Prix Goncourt for his novel La Nuit Sacrée (The Sacred Night), making him the first Maghreb author to receive the award. His 1996 novel Les raisins de la galère (The Fruits of Hard Work) is a reflection on racism and traditional Muslim ideas about women's place. The protagonist, a young French women of Algerian origin, 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 (This Blinding Absence of Light) in 2004. In 2005 he received the Prix Ulysse for his entire body of his work. In Africa, his novel Le mariage de plaisir was shortlisted for the GPLA 2016 (Belles-Lettres Category).

Tahar Ben Jelloun has written several pedagogical works. His first is Le Racisme expliqué à ma fille, translated as Racism Explained to My Daughter (1998). He also has written L'Islam expliqué aux enfants (Islam Explained, 2002) and Le Terrorisme expliqué à nos enfants (On Terrorism, 2016) in response to the 1990s protests against French immigration laws, the Islamophobia following the September 11 attacks in the United States, and the November 2015 Paris attacks. 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.