While the collection is uneven, Taia’s best stories are very impressive and quite memorable. Henry captures the problem of expat Moroccans attempting to live up to demands for money back home. One striking story with a twist worthy of O. Abdellah considers the experience of watching a gay-themed French film while he mother dozes nearby, his life abroad in Europe, and his encountering the grave of writer Jean Genet. The later stories are less precise and often veer toward becoming essays. These stories shine with their combination of sweet reverie and undertones of sadness. In terse, unornamented prose, the narrator remembers his family’s obsession with radio programs, the confusion over a rift between his parents and his favorite aunt, his love of martial arts movies, and other quotidian delights and dramas. Most center on a youth also named Abdellah, who grows up in a poor family in Rabat. It is in many ways a continuation of his early autobiographical texts, lyrically chronicling his experiences as a gay man-which can be a predicament, to put it mildlly, in his native Morocco, where homosexuality is still a crime, punishable by up to three. Taia, an openly gay writer from Morocco, which considers homosexuality a crime, collects 28 stories in this slim volume. Abdellah Taia's Une melancolie arabe was published in 2008 in Paris, where he now lives.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |