The book spans twenty years, moving from Sale, to Paris, to Cairo. Irresistibly charming, angry, and wry, this autobiographical novel traces the emergence of Abdellah Taia's identity as an openly gay Arab man living between cultures. Running is the only way he can stand up to the violence that is his Morocco. 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. He's running after his dream, his dream to become a movie director. A lower-class teenager is running until he's out of breath. I suddenly saw things with merciless lucidity. I had no more leniency when it came to the Arab world. 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. (Mar.An autobiographical portrait of a gay Arab man, living between cultures, seeking an identity through love and writing.

Ta%C3%AFa desires to see himself, and the world, with 'merciless lucidity.' Rather than telling his story in a linear narrative, Ta%C3%AFa renders his development in impressionistic scenes%E2%80%94unfortunately, despite moments of poetic beauty, the sum of these vignettes is too slight to fully satisfy. Often reflecting on his various male amours, Ta%C3%AFa's tale is vibrant and moving, especially the account of his tempestuous relationship with Slimane, a recently divorced Algerian father who in his prime was 'a proud man bronzed by the sun.' In addition to the difficulties of discovering one's sexuality in a traditionally conservative society, Ta%C3%AFa struggles throughout with what it means to present and represent oneself, as manifested via his thoughts on writing and the inclusion of journal entries. Spanning two decades, from the mid-'80s to the Oughts, this autobiographical novel tracks Ta%C3%AFa's growth from a young, closeted gay man in Sal%C3%A9, Morocco, doomed to a life of 'private and public shame,' to his sexual awakenings in Paris and Cairo. In his latest, Ta%C3%AFa (Salvation Army), the 'first openly gay autobiographical writer published in Morocco,' investigates the fraught crossroads of homosexuality and Islam in the Arab world.

An Arab Melancholia by Abdellah Taïa