Beautiful, stark, harrowing
This review has been rated 4 stars
In 1971, the Moroccan army attempted a coup and sent 1100 unwitting, unwilling soldiers to the birthday party of the King. Their orders were to find and kill him. Although over a hundred guests were killed in the attempt, the King survived, and those who participated in the coup were sent to the extremely harsh prison of Kenitra. 58 of them were taken to an even crueller place: Tazmamart, where they stayed in tiny cells that were too low for them to stand in, and where there was absolutely no light. They were to remain there for nearly twenty years.
Salim was one of these prisoners, and Tahar Ben Jelloun tells his story in a stark but beautiful way. Salim and his fellow inmates do their best to keep one another sane. One of them has an uncanny ability to always tell the time, despite the lack of daylight, and functions as their calender. Another can recite verses from the Koran. Salim himself tells stories. Although they live in a world stripped of all comforts, getting barely enough food and water to keep alive and being able to hear but not see the scorpions that infest their cells, Salim and his inmates manage to hold on to some form of human dignity.
This Blinding Absence of Light is a beautiful, if harrowing, account of human strength and perseverance, but also of the terrible things that we unthinkingly do to each other.
