An Arab Melancholia (Semiotext(e) / Native Agents)
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | 4.91 (674 Votes) |
| Asin | : | 158435111X |
| Format Type | : | paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 144 Pages |
| Publish Date | : | 2014-03-12 |
| Language | : | French |
DESCRIPTION:
The mid 1980s. He's running after the Egyptian movie star, Souad Hosni, who's out there somewhere, miles away from this neighborhood--which is a place the teenager both loves and hates, the home at which he is not at home, an environment that will only allow him his identity through the cultural lens of shame and silence. The book spans twenty years, moving from Salé, to Paris, to Cairo. I suddenly saw things with merciless lucidity.-- An Arab MelancholiaSalé, near Rabat. I had to rediscover who I was. And there I was, right in the heart of the Arab world, a world that never tired of making the same mistakes over and over. Running i
From Bookforum Everywhere, Taia finds individuals, usually Arab but not always, who are searching to fill in the empty spaces of their lives and to make sense of their memories and passions. These characters, seeking resolutions that are often impossible , are expertly drawn. No matter how painful Taia's portraits of friends and lovers are, they are full of empathy, even hope. —Brian T. Edwards
Though Moroccan, he lives in Paris. . He also appeared in Rémi Lange's 2004 film Tarik el Hob (released in English as The Road to Love). Abdellah Taïa (b. 1973) is the first openly gay autobiographical writer published in Morocco. He is the author of Mon Maroc and Le rouge du tarbouche, both translated into Dutch and Spanish, and Salvation Army (published by Semiotext(e) in English in 2009)
"A naive, neurotic, ultimately tragic narrator" according to JerryinChicago. Abdellah Tais's latest work, described on the book's back cover as an "autobiographical novel," presents a gay narrator desperate for human contact who is at times naïve, at times neurotic. Overshadowed in his family by a younger brother who his parents thinks speaks with divine inspiration, and stigmatized and mocked by the tough kids of his Moroccan village as an effeminate "girlie boy," Abdellah grows up as a gay Arab with a sense of dislocation that will character. GayJay said A haunting journey. As the previous reviewer pointed out there is no triumph in this book. This is not a classic love story or a traditional tale of the protagonist overcoming obstacles to come into himself. All you will find is honesty and madness in equal measure This is a beautifully written book that shocked me with its naked emotions, conveyed in poetic words, filtered through a layer of mysticism. I enjoyed the read, even if I didn't always agree with the way the narrator acted, behaved. Perhaps a memoir rather than a novel, but good at showing the universality of gay experiences and feelings across cultures H. Williams In November 2013, we discussed this in the book group at The LGBT Center in NYC.In general, we agreed that this was a "slight" story, and not especially well told. A lot of it seemed to be torn from a journal that was written over the years. It was full of omissions and lapses that raised questions. The "novel" (which seemed to be very much a memoir) was presented in four sections.The first section, "I Remember," presents the earliest view of the narrator Abdellah as a ver