This Blinding Absence of Light
{{Short description|2001 novel by Tahar Ben Jelloun}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=August 2024}}
{{Infobox book
| name = This Blinding Absence of Light
| image = This Blinding Absence of Light.jpg
| image_caption = 2001 French edition
| author = Tahar Ben Jelloun
| title_orig = {{Lang|fr|Cette aveuglante absence de lumière}}
| translator = Linda Coverdale
| country = France
| language = French
| publisher = Éditions du Seuil
| pub_date = 2001
| english_pub_date = 2002
| pages = 228
| isbn = 2-02-041777-4
}}
This Blinding Absence of Light ({{langx|fr|Cette aveuglante absence de lumière}}) is a 2001 novel by the Moroccan writer Tahar Ben Jelloun, translated from French by Linda Coverdale. Its narrative is based on the testimony of a former inmate at Tazmamart, a Moroccan secret prison for political prisoners, with extremely harsh conditions.
Plot
The plot is based around the events following the second failed coup d'etat against the late Hassan II of Morocco in August 1972. The protagonist is a prisoner in Tazmamart, who, despite being a fictional character, is based on accounts of the prisoners who survived their incarceration there.
The plot focuses on how prisoners who were kept in the extremely harsh conditions of Tazmamart survived, through religious devotion, imagination and communication. The prisoners spent their sentences in cells that are described as being only {{Convert|5|ft|m|abbr=on}} in height and {{Convert|10|ft|m|abbr=on}} long. The prisoners in the novel are not actively tortured, but are fed poorly and live without light.
Reception
Maureen Freely reviewed the book for The Guardian, and wrote that "it defies any expectations you might have built up from [knowing about Tazmamart]. It refuses the well-meaning but tired and ultimately dehumanising conventions of human rights horror journalism; it is not a political tract.... Although it is technically a novel, it is a novel stripped, like its subject, of all life's comforts." Freely wrote about the main character that "there is something Beckettian about his limited environment and studied hopelessness", and compared his literary voice to "the language of Islamic mysticism". Freely ended the review: "It is, despite its dark materials, a joy to read."{{Cite web|last=Freely|first=Maureen|authorlink=Maureen Freely|date=24 July 2004|url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2004/jul/24/featuresreviews.guardianreview14|title=Into the darkness|work=The Guardian|accessdate=1 February 2012}}
The novel received the International Dublin Literary Award in 2004.{{Cite web |title=***Winner 2004*** |url=http://www.impacdublinaward.ie/2004%20Award/Winner.htm |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120320004045/http://www.impacdublinaward.ie/2004%20Award/Winner.htm |archive-date=20 March 2012 |accessdate=1 February 2012 |work= |publisher=International Dublin Literary Award}}
See also
References
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{{succession box|title=International Dublin Literary Award recipient|before=My Name Is Red|after=The Known World|years=2004}}
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Category:Éditions du Seuil books
Category:French-language novels
Category:Human rights abuses in Morocco
Category:Novels set in Morocco