num_pages: 208
description: An immediate and critically acclaimed bestseller in France, This Blinding Absence of Light is the latest work by internationally renowned author Tahar Ben Jelloun, the first North African winner of the Prix Goncourt and winner of the Prix Mahgreb. Crafting real life events into narrative fiction, Ben Jelloun reveals the horrific story of the desert concentration camps in which King Hassan II of Morocco held his political enemies in underground cells with no light and only enough food and water to keep them lingering on the edge of death. Working closely with one of the survivors, Ben Jelloun narrates the story in the simplest of language and delivers a shocking novel that explores both the limitlessness of inhumanity and the impossible endurance of the human will.
language: English
title: This Blinding Absence of Light
titlecomplete: This Blinding Absence of Light
genres: France, Historical, African Literature, Novels, Africa, Historical Fiction, Literature, Literary Fiction, Fiction, Morocco
ratings_count: 12278
places: Morocco
awards: awardedAt: 1136102400000
name: Independent Foreign Fiction Prize
category: Shortlist, awardedAt: 1072944000000
name: Dublin Literary Award
publisher: Penguin Books