Another novel to add to the already impressive work of Tahar Ben Jelloun. January 10 is out Insomnia , the new book of the Franco-Moroccan writer. With Anne Roumanoff Wednesday, the author evokes his prolific work and his vision of literary work.
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"You have to work and work". "My editor said to me: 'but it is you who wrote it?'" Tahar Ben Jelloun still remembers in detail the moment when he presented the manuscript of Insomnia to his publisher Gallimard. In this new book, the reader follows a serial killer, forced to kill to be able to sleep. A confusing choice on the part of the writer. Asked how he found such ideas, Tahar Ben Jelloun recalled that he did not believe in inspiration, but rather "sweat". "Nothing comes down from the sky, you have to work and work," he says. "When I meet children, I tell them that there is no inspiration, we are attracted to a subject, an idea and we try to dig a little deeper, but it is with work," says the writer. .
The meeting with Jean Genet. About his work, Tahar Ben Jelloun remains modest. "I'm doing my job, but it's the readers and the time that will decide one day if it matters or not," he says at the microphone of Europe 1. A humility learned from another great name of literature: Jean Genet. A decisive meeting in the life of Tahar Ben Jelloun. "He called me, I was 26 years old and I was still at the university campus where I was a student and he said to me, 'I read you and I would like to meet you'. was extraordinary, the world upside down, "he recalls. "I learned a lot from him, like not to think of himself as an important writer, not to have a big head, to be brave," concludes Tahar Ben Jelloun.