Tangier, in the early 1990s: young Moroccans gather regularly in a seafront café to gaze at the lights on the Spanish coast glimmering in the distance. Facing a future with few prospects in a country they feel has failed them, their disillusionment is matched only by their desire to reach this paradise – so close and yet so far… not least because of the treacherous waters separating the two countries and the frightening stories they hear of the fates of would-be illegal emigrants. Azel, the protagonist, is intent upon leaving one way or another. At the brink of despair he meets Miguel, a wealthy Spanish gallery-owner, who promises to take him to Barcelona if Azel will become his lover. Seeing no other solution, and although he has a girlfriend to whom he is promised, Azel agrees to Miguel’s proposition and thus begins a different kind of hell for the young Moroccan – shame and self-disgust at his own helplessness gradually overcome him and he finds himself once more in a hopeless situation. Azel and others like him, including his sister, begin to wonder if the reality of life in Europe will live up to their dreams.
Author
Tahar Ben Jelloun
Tahar Ben Jelloun was born in Fez, Morocco in 1944. The year before Moroccan independence from France in 1956, his family moved to Tangier. He studied philosophy at the University of Rabat, and in 1966 was arrested alongside 94 other protestors for taking part in student demonstrations in Casablanca. He spent the following eighteen months in internment camps, here composing his first poetry. He occupied his mind with James Joyce’s Ulysses while in prison – a book smuggled in by his brother. After his release, Ben Jalloun worked as a teacher of philosophy in Tetuan and Casablanca, before the government decreed that philosophy be taught only in classical Arabic. He sought exile in Paris in 1971, where he wrote for the magazine Souffles and studied for his doctorate in social psychology. His thesis on the sexual misery of North African immigrants in France was published in 1975 as The Highest Solitude. It was his first bestseller, though a prior novel, Harounda (1973) had already won him critical plaudits from Samuel Beckett and Roland Barthes. Ben Jalloun has written for a range of European newspapers, including France’s Le Monde, Italy’s La Repubblica and Spain’s El País. He is also the recipient of a number of literary accolades, including the Prix Goncourt for The Sacred Night (1987), and the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award for This Blinding Absence of Light (2001).
Translator
Linda Coverdale
Linda Coverdale is an award-winning translator. She has translated many classic works of modern French literature into English, including Roland Barthes, Emmanuel Carrere, Marie Darrieussecq, Annie Ernaux, Hervé Guibert, Sébastien Japrisot, Tahar Ben Jelloun, Phiippe Labro, Yann Queffélec, Jorge Semprun and Patrick Volodine.
Published by
Arcadia, 2009
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Tangier, in the early 1990s: young Moroccans gather regularly in a seafront café to gaze at the lights on the Spanish coast glimmering in the distance. Facing a future with few prospects in a country they feel has failed them, their disillusionment is matched only by their desire to reach this paradise – so close and yet so far… not least because of the treacherous waters separating the two countries and the frightening stories they hear of the fates of would-be illegal emigrants. Azel, the protagonist, is intent upon leaving one way or another. At the brink of despair he meets Miguel, a wealthy Spanish gallery-owner, who promises to take him to Barcelona if Azel will become his lover. Seeing no other solution, and although he has a girlfriend to whom he is promised, Azel agrees to Miguel’s proposition and thus begins a different kind of hell for the young Moroccan – shame and self-disgust at his own helplessness gradually overcome him and he finds himself once more in a hopeless situation. Azel and others like him, including his sister, begin to wonder if the reality of life in Europe will live up to their dreams.