For what’s truly remarkable about this novel that falls into the category of “auto-fiction” that is popular in France and slowly catching on here is Taïa’s delicate use of language and his poetic, sublimely honest point of view. However, to reduce this book to an ethnographic document or mere monograph of sexual identity would be a mistake. Not only are we given a clear window onto the state of queerness in Morocco, but we are also offered soulful insights into the ambiguous exchange of identity and desire between Arabic cultures and Western Europe. In first person, the narrator Abdellah recounts tales of his childhood in Salé, his adolescent adventures in Tangiers, his wanderings as an adult in Marrakech and Rabat, and his studies and travails in Geneva, as well as his dreams of moving to Paris (where the author is now based). Openly autobiographical, it tells the story of Taïa’s coming into being as a gay man in Morocco. Salvation Army is Taïa’s third novel, the first to be translated into English from the French, in a fluid translation by Frank Stock. Abdellah Taïa’s Salvation Army is one such book. But every once in a while a novel comes along that shatters our jaded state and renews our faith in the queer coming of age genre. It can feel like a story we’ve read one time too many, one that has somehow become commodified, fraught with predictability. Here in the United States, it’s easy to become jaded about the coming out narrative.
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