Rising of the Ashes

Tahar Ben Jelloun, poet, novelist and professor, was born in Fez, Morocco in 1944. He has lived and worked in France since 1971. Winner of the Prix Goncourt in 1987, he received the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award in 2004. Author of numerous works of fiction, poetry, and critique, he writes regularly for diverse journals and newspapers, including Le Monde. Cullen Goldblatt is a writer and translator based in Brooklyn and living Dakar, Senegal. He was a 2006 National Poetry Series Finalist and his work has appeared in Words Without Borders, Left Turn Magazine and Guernica. He is author of the poem Night Music (Hotel St. George Press, 2008) and translator of elobi, by Patrice Nganang (Africa World Press, 2006).

On Ben Jelloun's work: "Hauntingly poetic and original." - Times Literary Supplement "What Ben Jelloun does brilliantly is write with a kind of refreshing candor that demystifies the Arab world." - Paris Voice "Ben Jelloun is a writer of social and moral acuteness." - Los Angeles Times "Spare, elegant, prose... with a sly black humor." - Village Voice