Acclaimed Author Tahar Ben Jelloun Clarifies Health Status, Dispels COVID-19 Rumors

"I’m fine. I haven’t caught covid-19," said the writer and Goncourt Prize winner Tahar Ben Jelloun. It all started with a column broadcast on France Inter on April 10th, which told the story of a man fighting covid-19. The confusion set in among those who followed the column. They thought that in his own literary style, the writer was sharing his own fight against the coronavirus, according to Atlasinfo.

But he explained that the text in question was written at the request of Augustin Trapenard. And the writing style was chosen to deal with the coronavirus and how one lives with it. "I imagined a ’Letter to a distant friend’ who has been infected with covid-19 and how he recovered from it," says Tahar Ben Jelloun, before adding that he is confined to his home. "I respect the confinement and I have adapted to it."

"Everything is fine," he assures, before thanking all those who sent him messages of sympathy, believing that he was affected by the coronavirus.