Rising of the Ashes

by Tahar Ben Jelloun, Cullen Goldblatt (Translator)

The violence of war is rendered immediate and vividly personal in this powerful book by one of North Africa’s premier writers and intellectuals. The human devastation wrought upon Iraqis in the Gulf War and upon Palestinian refugees in Lebanon and the Occupied Territories is captured in a quietly unrelenting, essential act of remembering that balances lyricism with horror.

Tahar Ben Jelloun, poet, novelist, and professor, was born and raised in Fez, Morocco, and has lived and worked in France since 1971. Winner of the Prix Goncourt in 1987, he is the author of numerous works of fiction, poetry, and critique.

Genres: Poetry

160 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1991

About the author

Tahar Ben Jelloun (Arabic: الطاهر بن جلون) is a Moroccan writer. The entirety of his work is written in French, although his first language is Arabic. He became known for his 1985 novel L’Enfant de Sable (The Sand Child). Today he lives in Paris and continues to write. He has been short-listed for the Nobel Prize in Literature.

Reviews

[City Lights Booksellers & Publishers]

"Although Jelloun composed these pieces in direct response to the atrocities of the Gulf War, the overarching message of his poetry soars beyond that. The reader may find meaning in a war of any age, any race, any people; Jelloun's outrage cries beyond the borders set by the status quo to unite a worldwide readership."

-Julie LeBlanc, Counterpoise

"Poetry written out of anger or outrage, or to express political convictions, doesn’t often last as long as that, but this book remains raw, painful, and effective."

-Geoff Wisner, The Quarterly Conversation

"Riveting, heartfelt, and a bit sobering, The Rising of the Ashes is masterfully translated by Cullen Goldblatt and makes a strong choice for readers." —The Midwest Book Review


"[Tahar Ben Jelloun:] has grappled with the necessity to not abbreviate the humanity of oppressed people close to 40 years, as a poet, novelist, and essayist. In this concise translation, Ben Jelloun the poet gives the unidentified Arab, Iraqi, and Palestinian, the Human Man, Woman, and Child 'bread and a name.'" —– Ammiel Alcalay, author of Memories of Our Future

"As resonant today as when they were composed, these urgent, mournful poems demonstrate the power of speech to shatter the murderous silence of war."
—Susan Harris, Words without Borders

"The febrile sense of the future suggested in these poems is of course our present, and of that, The Rising of the Ashes is eerily, engagingly and urgently penetrating."
-Colin Herd, Chroma

[Marie · Rating 5 out of 5]

OMG JE LE CONNAIS PAR COEUR
grosse dinguerie

[Leif · Rating 4 out of 5]

Never mawkish. Always alert. This was my introduction to Ben Jelloun: it struck me with the quiet blows of well-written, meditative lines and memorable images. While I appreciated the somber memorials, in particular I felt the power of his contemporary epic-length title poem, "The Rising of the Ashes," on the dead of the Gulf War. It won't be the last I read from him. Ben Jelloun has the last words:

A very old suffering makes our breath pitiful. The poet is one who risks words. The poet sets them down in order to breathe. This does not make the nights easier.

To name the wound, to give a name again to the face voided by flame, to tell, to make and remake the borders of silence, that is what the poet's conscience dictates. The poet must consider the powerlessness of language in the face of history's extreme brutality, in the face of the suffering of those who have nothing left, not even a reason to survive and forget.

[Aimad · Rating 1 out of 5]

J'aime pas la poésie surtout quand elle est écrite en français et elle raconte l'histoire d'un pays de Golfe. Il faut s'intéresser à son pays et à ses malheurs avant tout, on à un Anfgou qui vit d'un état qui est pire de celui de l'Irak, Palestine, Darfour...etc.
Je suis désolé mais c'est le pire ouvrage de Tahar Ben Jelloun.