Pain, too, comes from depths that cannot be revealed. We do not know whether those depths are in ourselves or elsewhere, in a graveyard, in a scarcely dug grave, only recently inhabited by withered flesh. This truth, which is banal enough, unravels time and the face, holds up a mirror to me in which I cannot see myself without being overcome by a profound sadness that undermines one's whole being. The mirror has become the route through which my body reaches that state, in which it is crushed into the ground, digs a temporary grave, and allows itself to be drawn by the living roots that swarm beneath the stones. It is flattened beneath the weight of that immense sadness which few people have the privilege of knowing. So I avoid mirrors.

A Palace in the Old Village (2010). Selected works
Harrouda (1973)
Solitaire (1976)
French Hospitality (1984)
The Sand Child (1985)
The Sacred Night (1987)
Silent Day in Tangiers (1990)
With Downcast Eyes (1991)
State of Absence (1992)
Corruption (1995)
The Fruits of Hard Work (1996)
Praise of Friendship (1996)
L'Auberge des pauvres (1997)
Racism Explained to My Daughter (1998)
This Blinding Absence of Light (2000)
Islam Explained (2002)
La Belle au bois dormant (2004)
The last friend (2006)
Yemma (2007)
Leaving Tangier (2009)
The Rising of the ATahar Ben Jellouns (2009) ISBN 978-0-87286-526-6. After that point Ben Jelloun worked as a professor in Morocco teaching philosophy first in Tétouan and then in Casablanca.

The entirety of his work is written in French although his first language is Arabic. Tahar ben Jelloun (Arabic: الطاهر بن جلون‎) (born in Fes French Morocco 1 December 1944) is a Moroccan writer.