About Tahar Ben Jelloun
A Moroccan author writing in French, Tahar Ben Jelloun was born in 1944 in Fez and immigrated to France in 1961. He has published numerous novels, collections of poetry, and essays. He has taught philosophy in Morocco before moving to France to study psychology. His novel Sacred Night (La Nuit Sacrée) won the 1987 Prix Goncourt. He was made a Commander of the Order of Arts and Letters, elected a member of the Académie Goncourt and awarded the Officer’s Cross of the Legion of Honour.
Two of his books have been adapted into films: The Absent’s Prayer, adapted into a comedy-drama by Hamid Benani in 2001, and Sacred Night, adapted into a drama by Nicolas Klotz in 1993.
Tahar Ben Jelloun is also a painter. He started drawing even before writing, however he began painting only in the past ten years.
