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A review by louiza_read2live
This Blinding Absence of Light by Tahar Ben Jelloun
4.0
This book is out of anyone's worst nightmares; however, for those who lived through it, it was a nightmare they couldn't wake up from.
This takes place in Morocco from 1971-1991. The king in order to punish his political prisoners, he throws them in an underground pit with nothing else but two blankets and the summer clothes they were wearing on that fated day of July 10, 1971. Their underground cell is not tall enough for them to be able to stand up and not wide enough to be able to walk around. Complete and utter darkness 24/7 is their main punishment. They get some air just to keep them alive from a vent specifically made to let some air in, but not let even the slightest trace of light. Guards enter the prisoners' underground cells daily with a flashlight to drop off some dry bread and some beans, just barely enough food to keep them between life and death until they die a slow and agonizing death or until some of them are eaten alive by the undergound bugs. We follow the daily torturous living hell of 24 prisoners and their struggle to survive in these unimaginable and annihilating conditions.
You would think this is a horror novel, something Steven King might have written because certainly this can't be real! Wrong. Once again, we sadly learn that human sadism has no end.
King Hasan II was the monarch of Morocco from 1961 until his death in 1999. After a failed coup in 1971 where at least 100 of the King's guests in the palace were killed, he didn't just imprisoned the political prisoners and he didn't execute all of them. Instead, he thought of a punishment worse than death. Salim is the fictional name of one of the 3-4 survivors who after 20 years (1971-1991) in King Hassan's dark underground prison-graves made it out after pressure by the United States and the Amnesty International forced King Hassan II to free them. One of the survivors narrated his experience to the author Tahar Ben Jelloun and he in turn gave voice to the few survivors, but also to the many silent dead, by writing their true story in a fictional narrative. The author Tahar Ben Jelloun left Morocco when King Hassan II came in power in 1961 and he has been living in France.
Note: There is a lot more to be said about the reliability of the character Salim as the only narrative source for what actually happened on that July 10, 1971 when they stormed into the palace to carry out a coup, and certainly there is much to be researched for anyone who is interested in learning more.
I do wish that my copy had detailed introduction and an epilogue with more information about what the author chose to change or keep true.
Two things, however, are clear to me: No matter what actually happened the day of the coup and whether the Junior Officers knew or didn't know (as Salim claims) what was going to happen, the punishment was sadistic and unacceptable. Only a human without a soul could invent and carry out such callous acts against other human beings, even enemies, as King Hassan II perpetrated against his prisoners, and not out of some temporary necessity or self-defense, but out of pure vindictiveness and abuse of power.
This takes place in Morocco from 1971-1991. The king in order to punish his political prisoners, he throws them in an underground pit with nothing else but two blankets and the summer clothes they were wearing on that fated day of July 10, 1971. Their underground cell is not tall enough for them to be able to stand up and not wide enough to be able to walk around. Complete and utter darkness 24/7 is their main punishment. They get some air just to keep them alive from a vent specifically made to let some air in, but not let even the slightest trace of light. Guards enter the prisoners' underground cells daily with a flashlight to drop off some dry bread and some beans, just barely enough food to keep them between life and death until they die a slow and agonizing death or until some of them are eaten alive by the undergound bugs. We follow the daily torturous living hell of 24 prisoners and their struggle to survive in these unimaginable and annihilating conditions.
You would think this is a horror novel, something Steven King might have written because certainly this can't be real! Wrong. Once again, we sadly learn that human sadism has no end.
King Hasan II was the monarch of Morocco from 1961 until his death in 1999. After a failed coup in 1971 where at least 100 of the King's guests in the palace were killed, he didn't just imprisoned the political prisoners and he didn't execute all of them. Instead, he thought of a punishment worse than death. Salim is the fictional name of one of the 3-4 survivors who after 20 years (1971-1991) in King Hassan's dark underground prison-graves made it out after pressure by the United States and the Amnesty International forced King Hassan II to free them. One of the survivors narrated his experience to the author Tahar Ben Jelloun and he in turn gave voice to the few survivors, but also to the many silent dead, by writing their true story in a fictional narrative. The author Tahar Ben Jelloun left Morocco when King Hassan II came in power in 1961 and he has been living in France.
Note: There is a lot more to be said about the reliability of the character Salim as the only narrative source for what actually happened on that July 10, 1971 when they stormed into the palace to carry out a coup, and certainly there is much to be researched for anyone who is interested in learning more.
I do wish that my copy had detailed introduction and an epilogue with more information about what the author chose to change or keep true.
Two things, however, are clear to me: No matter what actually happened the day of the coup and whether the Junior Officers knew or didn't know (as Salim claims) what was going to happen, the punishment was sadistic and unacceptable. Only a human without a soul could invent and carry out such callous acts against other human beings, even enemies, as King Hassan II perpetrated against his prisoners, and not out of some temporary necessity or self-defense, but out of pure vindictiveness and abuse of power.