THE INTELLECTUAL FACE OF MOROCCO LITERATURE OPENED IN THE WORLD: TAHAR BEN JELLOUN

Abstract

Tahar Ben Jelloun who was born in Fes, Morocco on December 1, 1944 is the prominent poet, novelist and essayist of Morocco as well as having a journalistic identity with his creative and intellectual personality. Ben Jelloun was one of the powerful scribe over the country after the colonial period. Many of his studies have been transleted into various languages and his most popular works covered by fourty theree languages. Ben Jelloun presented works that left aesthetic traces in North Africa and International Literature between 1973-1987, the most prominent periods of his life. The author, born and raised in Morocco but living in France has refused to be in an identity of a Western or an Oriental and became a voice of North African immigrants. Jelloun, won the Goncourt prize in 1987 with his novel “The sacred Night” and became the first Moroccan writer to be awarded France’s most prestigious literary life of Tahar Ben Jelloun, who represents North Africa in the World with his versatility. Ben Jelloun has talked about the differences between French and Moroccan society and addressed them primarily to the culture and traditions of the Moroccan society, such as poverty, inequality, oppression of women, corruption, extreme Islamism, dysfunctional government, migration and racism. Among the important authors of the post-independence country, the writer has become the face of Morocco that opens up to the world with his own style, point of view and considerations. In this work, we will try to focus on the literary life of Tahar Ben Jelloun, who has a multifaceted literary personality of North Africa opened to the world.