Tahar Ben Jelloun

Emigration is no longer a solution; it's a defeat. People are risking death, drowning every day, but they're knocking on doors that are not open.

I am a guest of the French language. My poems in French are born of my interaction with the French language, which is not the same as that of a French poet.

New ideas should confront old ideas. We must refer to the example of Europe. People have fought to make Europe what it is today. Freedom is not something that is served up on a plate.

Is France a northern European export powerhouse, or a Mediterranean indebted and dependent economy? Yes to both.

Every five years, I like to do a big birthday party. I had my 45th birthday with 75 friends in Marrakesh, Morocco.

My kind publishers, Toby Mundy and Margaret Stead of Atlantic Books, have commissioned me to write the life of Queen Victoria.