Life & Wisdom Quote by Tahar Ben Jelloun

A quiet provocation sits inside Ben Jelloun's phrasing: he frames French not as a borrowed costume but as a tool that lets him misbehave. "The language of my people" is an emotionally loaded claim of belonging, and then he immediately steps away from it. The sentence is built like an ethical dilemma: loyalty on one side, artistic oxygen on the other. He doesn't pretend the choice is neutral; he names it as a refusal.

The second line clarifies the real target: not Arabic as a language, but the social and political expectations that cling to it. "Would not allow me" sounds grammatical, yet it's really cultural. In many postcolonial contexts, Arabic carries the weight of sacred text, national identity, family honor, and state scrutiny. A poet working in that medium can be policed not only by censors but by readers who feel entitled to defend "the people's" language from certain kinds of desire, blasphemy, eroticism, or dissent. French, for Ben Jelloun, becomes a kind of creative exile that also functions as cover.

The subtext is bittersweet: he gains freedom through the language historically associated with domination. That paradox is the point. His "liberties" are not just stylistic experiments; they're acts of survival and refusal. He suggests that literature isn't simply self-expression but a negotiated space where language decides what can be imagined, confessed, or challenged - and where choosing a tongue can be the most political line a poet writes.