Tangier and Tahar Ben Jelloun's "Partir"

Joseph Hanimann reviews Tahar Ben Jelloun's new novel "Partir" and takes a look at Tangier in Morocco, where the story is set. The book "does exactly what German-Iranian author Navid Kermani said a writer should do in his speech at the Burgtheater in Vienna, namely to give the immigrants we see on TV as either an anonymous threat or a mass of pitiful refugees individual faces and stories... The stories of the characters intertwined in the chapters of the book convey a colourful panorama of this city and its milieu, without apportioning blame or making people appear as victims... Tahar Ben Jelloun's novel elevates what is happening on Europe's southern borders to an allegory with universal meaning. And at the same time it reveals the truth behind these individual destinies of that 'other' globalisation of dusty shoes and charred identity cards which Tangier is so busily trying to expunge from its image."

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