![]() ![]() Proclaimed as the first openly gay writer to be published in Morocco, Abdellah Taïa by writing this autobiographical novel, An Arab Melancholia (Semiotext(e)/MIT Press), might be the unsuspected voice of a subculture. ![]() The fourth entry in Taïa’s autobiographical cycle, An Arab Melancholia is a slender bildungsroman that marries transgressive sexual confessions to laconic spiritual poetry, and is an intriguing meditation on whether silenced desires can find liberation through more-mystical forms of expression. ![]() Implicit in much of his prose-a medley of epistles, diary entries, cinematic and musical allusions, and medieval poetic citations-is the promise of writing as a means of speaking homosexual love from within and outside of the Arabic language and the law of Islam. Mimicking the work of other Moroccan expatriates like Abdelkebir Khatibi and Tahar Ben Jelloun, Taïa has also exposed the contentious and violent ideological dialogue between the postmodern West and postcolonial North Africa. Acclaimed as the first openly homosexual author from Morocco, Abdellah Taïa has spent the better part of a decade exploring the difficult topic of queerness in the Arab world. ![]()
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