“This Blinding Absence of Light” by Tahar Ben Jelloun (Morocco)

Favourite Quote

Life: it’s being able to raise your arm, rub the back of your neck, stretch for the pure pleasure of it, get up and stroll along aimlessly, watch people go by, stop, read a newspaper – or simply stay sitting at your window because you have nothing to do and it’s nice to do nothing.

Synopsis

Based on a true story, Tahar Ben Jelloun traces the experiences of Salim who, in 1971, took part in a failed coup attempt to oust King Hassan II of Morocco. With sixty others Salim was incarcerated in a secret prison complex in the Moroccan desert: he was to remain there for nearly twenty years.

In starkly eloquent, beautiful prose, Ben Jelloun relates the prisoners’ experiences as they struggle to survive. The son of a witty, feckless courtier who disowns him, Salim tells stories to keep sane – from the suras of his beloved Koran to the plot of A Streetcar Named Desire. Even in the darkest, most terrible conditions, sympathy, insight, the human quest for meaning and understanding, never desert Salim. The resulting novel is a wrenching yet exquisite celebration of the human spirit and its determination to survive.

Nicola’s Creative Reading Group reading list

Year 2 – “Africa and the Caribbean” (Oct 2007 – Jun 2008)

“This Blinding Absence of Light” by Tahar Ben Jelloun (Morocco)
“Woman at Point Zero” by Nawal El Saadawi (Egypt)
“Bitter Fruit” by Achmat Dangor (South Africa)
“Sleepwalking Land” by Mia Couto (Mozambique)
“Matigari” by Ngugi wa Thiong’o (Kenya)
“In-Between World of Vikram Lall” by M.G. Vassanji (Tanzania)
“Half of a Yellow Sun” by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (Nigeria)
“Ancestor Stones” by Aminatta Forna (Sierra Leone)
“The Dragon Can’t Dance” by Earl Lovelace (Trinidad & Tobago)