The interweaving of the lived and the fictional in That brilliant darkness by Tahar Ben Jelloun and Tazmamort by Aziz BineBine

Document Type : Original Article

Author

Department of French, Faculty of Education, University of Ain Shams, Cairo, Egypt

Abstract

Numerous texts emerged with the voices of survivors' testimony to unveil a horrific Moroccan prison that was built after the first failed coup in Skhirat against King Hassan II of Morocco on July 10, 1971. Among these texts, the novel "That brilliant darkness" (2001) by Taher Ben Jelloun, inspired by the true testimony of former Tazmamart prison inmate: Aziz BineBine, who in 2009 wanted to turn the page, recalled his past and published Tazmamort. These two texts are part of "prison literature" because of the need to testify and not to forget inhuman grievances. They are part of the "prison literature" and " testimony literature" where the interaction between the testimony and imagination and the intertwined between them is our subject. To do this, the mechanisms for narrative, building and transferring memory, and writing strategies aimed to build a real meaning for the testimony of the authors of the two texts were highlighted.

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