The poet and novelist Tahar Ben Jelloun, Goncourt Prize in 1987, was the guest of Ça fait du bien, Wednesday on Europe 1. Aware that the era did not really invite optimism, he underlined the importance of poetry. "This is what we need most at the moment," he said.

INTERVIEW

"Poetry is what we need most now. Poetry is what will save the world," said Tahar Ben Jelloun, writer, poet and Goncourt Prize in 1987, at the microphone of Europe 1. Guest of Ça fait bien, at Anne Roumanoff's, on Europe 1, the Franco-Moroccan writer, the most translated French-speaking author in the world, assures that poetry allows "to reveal what is best in man . " "Imagine a society where there is no poetry, no music: it's hell. We need poetry to live," says the poet.

"Humanity is not very beautiful"

Before the novels, Tahar Ben Jelloun's first publications were poems, collected in Men under the shroud of silence , published in 1971. Their author considers that the poet must draw his inspiration from everyday life and not from his dreams - it is in any case his method. "I am not very dreamy, I am very concrete," he says. But how to do when one is confronted with "the pain of the world" as he says, with information, everywhere and all the time?

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"The poet is in the world, he is in direct contact with everyday life, with modest, humble people, powerful people, so that he can write and reveal what is best in man. man is not totally bad, even if humanity is not very beautiful, "he said. Even if, admits Tahar Ben Jelloun, "from time to time we have surprises, people who come out of this malicious humanity to do good". His latest collection, Pain and Light of the World , was released in 2019.