The Prize and the Protest

On a November morning in 1987, Tahar Ben Jelloun sat in a Parisian café, watching the early news with growing disbelief. The Prix Goncourt, France's most prestigious literary award, had just been announced, and his novel "La Nuit sacrée" (The Sacred Night) had won. At forty-three, the Moroccan writer who had arrived in France as a philosophy student was now at the pinnacle of French letters. But even as congratulations poured in, he could hear the undertone of resentment: how dare a North African, an Arab, a Muslim claim France's highest literary honor?

The phone at the café rang—journalists seeking quotes. "How does it feel to be the first Maghrebi writer to win the Goncourt?" they asked, as if his ethnicity were more important than his art. Ben Jelloun paused, choosing his words carefully. He had spent decades navigating between worlds—Morocco and France, Arabic and French, tradition and modernity. Now he was being asked to represent all immigrant writers, all postcolonial subjects, all Arabs in France.

"I write in French," he finally said, "but I dream in Arabic. The prize honors not just me but all those who live between languages, between cultures. It recognizes that French literature no longer belongs only to those born in the Hexagon."

That evening, at the official ceremony, he watched the French literary establishment wrestle with his presence. Some embraced him warmly—here was proof of French culture's universality. Others were coolly polite, their smiles not reaching their eyes. He was simultaneously too French (writing in their language, winning their prize) and not French enough (with his Moroccan passport, his accented speech, his different features).

Later, alone in his apartment, Ben Jelloun reflected on the day's ironies. The novel that won the prize continued the story of a character from his previous book—a girl raised as a boy in traditional Morocco, struggling with identity, sexuality, and freedom. The French critics praised its "exotic" setting while missing its universal themes. They read it as anthropology when he had written it as poetry.

He thought of his father, a shopkeeper in Fez who never understood why his son needed to write. He thought of his years of poverty in Paris, writing in unheated rooms, teaching Arabic to French students who complained about its difficulty. He thought of the racism he faced daily—landlords who suddenly had no vacancies, publishers who suggested he write about "authentic" Moroccan life, readers who complimented his French as if it were a circus trick.

The Goncourt would change his life—international translations, financial security, a global platform. But it would also trap him in new ways. From now on, he would be "Ben Jelloun, the Goncourt winner," expected to represent, to speak for, to explain. The border crosser had won recognition, but the borders remained.