$34.32
- Paperback
144 pages
- Release Date
9 March 2012
Summary
An autobiographical portrait of a gay Arab man, living between cultures, seeking an identity through love and writing.I had to rediscover who I was. And that’s why I left the apartment…. 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…. I had no more leniency when it came to the Arab world… None for the Arabs and none for myself. I suddenly saw things with merciless lucidity….-An Arab MelancholiaSale, near Rabat. The mi…
Book Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781584351115 |
|---|---|
| ISBN-10: | 158435111X |
| Author: | Frank Stock, Abdellah Taïa |
| Publisher: | Autonomedia |
| Imprint: | Semiotext |
| Format: | Paperback |
| Number of Pages: | 144 |
| Release Date: | 9 March 2012 |
| Weight: | 249g |
| Dimensions: | 229mm x 152mm x 10mm |
| Series: | Semiotext(e) / Native Agents |
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Critics Review
This slim autobiographical novel by an openly gay man who lives between cultures in Egypt and France is the kind of wry, reflective narrative prose that feels like poetry. Beautiful.
Taia writes from within a distinctly different Arab culture in this passionate novel about two worlds intersecting.
* Pridesource: Between the Lines *There is light and space in his prose. And despair. At times, he uses the ellipsis suggestively…bringing out the apertures within and between words and thoughts, eliciting the unbridgeable gap between individuals. That is where desire seems to lie, and where belonging−and melancholia−is to be found in his writing.
* Bookforum *Melancholia offers a view into the life of a man still very much in the making, a man still searching for love and answers. At one point, he wonders, ‘How are you supposed to go on living when you’re totally entangled in the sad, bitter, exciting memory of someone who didn’t love you back?’ It is a question that cuts across gender, sexual orientation, culture, and time-and stumps anyone unfortunate enough to find himself in its path.
* Words Without Borders *Taia writes from within a distinctly different Arab culture in this passionate novel about two worlds intersecting.
* Pridesource: Between the Lines *This is honest writing from a marginalized position. It leaves with its readers an insistence that through everything there is always something else that follows. It’s neither a hesitant optimism nor a beaten-down acceptance…. It’s something else, something more human. The weight of the world cannot be taken on as the Sisyphean boulder, but rather we have to just forget about the world and make sure we’re moving forward.
* HTML Giant *This slim autobiographical novel by an openly gay man who lives between cultures in Egypt and France is the kind of wry, reflective narrative prose that feels like poetry. Beautiful.
* Advocate *About The Author
Frank Stock
Abdellah Taia (born in 1973) is the author of six novels, including Salvation Army and An Arab Melancholia, both published by Semiotext(e), and Infidels. His novel Le jour du roi, about the death of Morocco’s King Hassan II, won the 2010 Prix de Flore. He also directed and wrote the screenplay for the 2013 film adaptation of Salvation Army.
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