Criticism > Contemporary Literary Criticism > Jelloun, Tahar Ben - Mustapha Marrouchi (essay date winter 1990)

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Mustapha Marrouchi (essay date winter 1990)

SOURCE: Marrouchi, Mustapha. “Breaking Up/Down/Out of the Boundaries: Tahar Ben Jelloun.” Research in African Literatures 21, no. 4 (winter 1990): 71-83.

[In the following essay, Marrouchi traces the development of the character Zahra in La Nuit sacrée and examines how the novel deconstructs traditional notions of gender and colonization.]

We're finished with it, with the struggle against exile. Our tasks are now those of insertion. No longer the stupendous generality of the scream, but the thankless inventory of the country's particulars.

(Edouard Glissant, Le Discours antillais 285)

For many readers, La Nuit sacrée revolves around the blurring of boundaries between orality-writing, prose-poetry, reality-fantasy, realism-allegory, Bâtin-Zahir,¹ and presence-absence. Adapting a narrative to such symbiotic...

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1. Introduction
2. Principal Works
3. Criticism
   1. Jean-Louise Thatcher (review date summer 1988)
   2. Robin Buss (review date 27 January-2 February 1989)
   3. Adam Zameenzad (review date 19 November 1989)
   4. Mustapha Marrouchi (essay date winter 1990)
   5. Robin Buss (review date 15 June 1990)
   6. Mildred Mortimer (review date winter 1991)
   7. Odile Cazenave (essay date February 1991)
   8. Richard Eder (review date 11 April 1991)
   9. Tahar Ben Jelloun and Thomas Spear (interview date 25 May 1991)
   10. Aamer Hussein (review date 21 June 1991)
   11. Eric Sellin (review date autumn 1992)
   12. Danielle Chavy Cooper (review date spring 1993)
   13. John D. Erickson (essay date spring 1993)
   14. Marie Fayad (essay date December 1993)
   15. Danielle Chavy Cooper (review date autumn 1994)
   16. Brinda Mehta (essay date October 1994)
   17. James Campbell (review date 16 December 1994)
   18. Nada Elia (review date autumn 1995)
   19. Richard Eder (review date 19 October 1995)
   20. Allen Hibbard (review date spring 1996)
   21. Ramzi M. Salti (review date spring 1996)
   22. Kenneth Fleurant (review date May 1996)
   23. Eric Sellin (review date autumn 1998)
   24. Tahar Ben Jelloun and Shusha Guppy (interview date fall 1999)
   25. Eric Sellin (review date summer 2000)
   26. Michael Brett (review date 4 August 2000)
   27. Jamal Mahjoub (review date 17 August 2001)
   28. Publishers Weekly (review date 4 March 2002)
   29. Ziauddin Sardar (review date 17 February 2003)
4. Further Reading
5. Copyright