That dazzling darkness

That dazzling darkness was written in a way that makes the reader believe it is a personal experience of the writer, Tahar Ben Jelloun, but in reality, it is a novel based on real events and inspired by the testimonies of others who experienced imprisonment in the terrible Moroccan detention center Tazmamart. The novel was published in French and translated into Arabic by the exquisite poet Bassam Hajar, published by the Arab Cultural Center as part of distinguished and unique translated novels. Since its publication, it has been considered one of the most important and truthful prison literature novels. Its English version received the Dublin Literary Award "IMPAC" in 2004. About the book "That Dazzling Darkness" In "That Dazzling Darkness," Tahar Ben Jelloun conducts a fictional trial of the Arab political system, and in his novel, he dissects many mechanisms of political and social repression in his country. He does this through real events inspired by the testimony of one of the detainees in Tazmamart prison, who spent twenty years in this detention center. The novel recounts real events through the voice of the prisoner (Aziz), the main character in the work, and others that complement it. They are a group of soldiers who were involved or accused of executing the Skhirat coup attempt against King Hassan II in 1971. One of the senior military leaders led the prisoners toward the royal Skhirat Palace, even though the information they left for was only for participating in a military maneuver, and that was on July 10, 1971. Aziz did not fire a single shot in the operation because he did not understand what was happening, and because his father was a personal friend of the king, being in his court. Later, the father denied his son and disowned him, and he did not seek his release. Aziz was in shock while in the palace, with bodies scattered around him. Immediately, the planners and executors of the coup attempt were arrested, then imprisoned in Tazmamart, which was opened for detainees and buried in the sand, as the narrator describes: "The grave was a cell about three meters long and a meter and a half wide, and its ceiling was very low, with a height between 150 and 160 centimeters, and I could not stand in it..." Thus, Tahar Ben Jelloun narrates the truth and reality, providing scenes of how the authorities and security agencies control every aspect of life, where the fear of authority and its men turns into a pathological state within the prisoners, who have to pay heavy prices to recover from this condition. "When he was released, he was transferred to a clinic for convalescence until the effects of wounds and weakness disappeared." Aziz saw his face in the mirror of the military dentist’s room after leaving the detention, where he had not seen his facial features for eighteen years. He described those terrifying moments when he stared at the wrinkles of his face, his bulging eyes, and his features. From the novel "That Dazzling Darkness" I have always searched for the black stone that purifies the soul of death. And when I say "always," I imagine a bottomless well, a tunnel I dug with my fingers, with my teeth. I am driven by stubborn hope to see, even for a minute, a lasting, eternal minute, a ray of light, a spark that would imprint in the depths of my eyes and preserve in my innermost being as a secret. And here it is, silent in my chest, nursing nights of endless despair, here, in this grave, in the moist earth, filled with the scent of a human emptied of his humanity by cruel blows that peel his skin and tear away his sight and the voice of reason.