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Review
"Abdellah Taia is a brilliant young Moroccan living in France. In this novel, appropriately, he talks about his first contacts with Europeans. We learn about the traditional Moroccan family, about Swiss sex tourists, about the Salvation Army in Geneva, about the first burgeoning of desire in a young Arab, about family love and carnal love. Taia has a captivating way of taking us into his confidence and telling us essential truths." - Edmund White" --publisher
Review
"Here in the United States, it's easy to become jaded about the coming out narrative. It can feel like a story we've read one time too many, one that has somehow become commodified, fraught with predictability. 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. Abdellah Taia's Salvation Army is one such book." Alistair McCartney Lambda Report "In a simple and straightforward language, the author leads the reader through a journey of uncertainty and self-discovery, beyond the nuanced resonance of words and emotions. Writing, which he discovers at an early age, involves for him a courageous and unprecedented act of exposing his country's taboos and prohibitions." Mustapha Hamil Tingus Magazine "Just when you thought you'd read every coming out story imaginable, a book as fresh and original as this one enlivens the genre." Noel Alumit Frontiers in LA "The novel is richly layered yet impressively lean, and as easily enjoyed by the pool as at a university library." Glen Helfand Bay Area Reporter "This straightforward story about self-discovery is a reminder that coming-of-age tales still need to be told." Richard Labonte
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
A fine book about a gay youngster trying to find his identity in a religiously repressive country. Looking back, the author sees the humour, sadness, love and passions in his life that have shaped him into the adult that he now has become.
I found the book providing insights into a culture and religion that is different from my own. This was done in a refreshing manner without being pushy.
An entertaining and thought provoking book.
I found the book providing insights into a culture and religion that is different from my own. This was done in a refreshing manner without being pushy.
An entertaining and thought provoking book.
Format:Paperback
Abdellah Taia is the first Morrocan writter to come out and speak openly about his homosexuality and probably one of the very few ( actually none comes to mind right now ) men coming from a conservative muslim enviroment to talk about such issues in his books .
On " Salvation Army " , Taia doesn't shy away from writing about the palpable erotic chemistry between his father and mother or his unapologetic lust over his older brother when he was in his teens . Still , it's other incidents like the harassment he was subjected to by two morrocan policemen while his was strolling with his boyfriend on the streets of Marrakech that are more piercing and leave a lasting impression to the reader .
Overall this is an interesting piece of work , with maybe more of a symbolic value than a literature value . Taia doesn't really talk about facing any challenges while growing up gay in an arab culture . Maybe he hadn't experienced any or maybe it will all be part of another book in the future . The writter himself is young , obviously confident and with romantism to spare and is one to closely follow in the coming years .
On " Salvation Army " , Taia doesn't shy away from writing about the palpable erotic chemistry between his father and mother or his unapologetic lust over his older brother when he was in his teens . Still , it's other incidents like the harassment he was subjected to by two morrocan policemen while his was strolling with his boyfriend on the streets of Marrakech that are more piercing and leave a lasting impression to the reader .
Overall this is an interesting piece of work , with maybe more of a symbolic value than a literature value . Taia doesn't really talk about facing any challenges while growing up gay in an arab culture . Maybe he hadn't experienced any or maybe it will all be part of another book in the future . The writter himself is young , obviously confident and with romantism to spare and is one to closely follow in the coming years .
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
11 reviews
14 of 17 people found the following review helpful
Between a rock and a hard place
28 May 2009
Format:Paperback
"Salvation Army" by Abdellah Taia is not a complicated on the surface. It tells the story of a young and naive gay Moroccan who grows up in large family and later comes to Europe in the pursuit of sexual freedom. When his lover does not show up at the airport to pick him up, he is forced to seek shelter at the Salvation Army (and therefore the title).
Right? Not really. It is not your average coming out story. Not at all. Taia puts together an amazingly sobering story about growing up in a culture in which your reality is not considered. He is love with his brother and the brother may not even notice. The very fact of having eleven siblings can leave anyone feeling lost in their own family, but Taia retains a distinct personality through and through.
Whether he is writing about North Africa or Western Europe, Taia seems to have found a way to put things in perspective -- at least for himself. He finds North African lovers be warm, passionate and full of love for life. On the other hand, his Western European affairs tend to leave him yearning for more. And while he finds laughter and the exotic bliss of life in his family, it is Western Europe where yearns to find the peace and happiness one finds in freedom.
In the end, for me it was not a story fully told. Perhaps this is the Western jadedness in me. Perhaps I had forgotten what it was to be from the East, cultures where the less people reveal the better they feel. Or perhaps it was all lost in the translation. Whatever it was, I felt cheated. I felt cheated out of the details of a wonderful story. Would I buy it again? Oh, so yes.
Right? Not really. It is not your average coming out story. Not at all. Taia puts together an amazingly sobering story about growing up in a culture in which your reality is not considered. He is love with his brother and the brother may not even notice. The very fact of having eleven siblings can leave anyone feeling lost in their own family, but Taia retains a distinct personality through and through.
Whether he is writing about North Africa or Western Europe, Taia seems to have found a way to put things in perspective -- at least for himself. He finds North African lovers be warm, passionate and full of love for life. On the other hand, his Western European affairs tend to leave him yearning for more. And while he finds laughter and the exotic bliss of life in his family, it is Western Europe where yearns to find the peace and happiness one finds in freedom.
In the end, for me it was not a story fully told. Perhaps this is the Western jadedness in me. Perhaps I had forgotten what it was to be from the East, cultures where the less people reveal the better they feel. Or perhaps it was all lost in the translation. Whatever it was, I felt cheated. I felt cheated out of the details of a wonderful story. Would I buy it again? Oh, so yes.
13 of 16 people found the following review helpful
"Where does it come from, the darkness of this world?"
26 May 2009
Format:Paperback
I came to this book under the spell of Alistair McCartney's persuasive review in a recent issue of LAMBDA BOOK REPORT. (Part of it is reproduced above.) He had me all excited. And then when I got the book I turned to Edmund White's enthusiastic preface and it was even more enthusiastic than what Alistair had written. But nevertheless, when I finally turned to Taia's text I found a different book entirely than the one the two great novelists had described to me. Were we all blind men, and SALVATION ARMY the elephant in the parable? Yea, I think we are.
McCartney looks at the book as a version of the coming-out novel that was once a staple of gay writing, given new freshness by its unique setting and, perhaps, by the extreme subject position of its main character. White views it partly as a jeremiad against Western sex tourism. I kept reading through the whole thing and couldn't find either of those books; what I saw was the astonishingly frank story of a young boy who knows his feelings are an offense to society, but who persists in them anyhow. His incestuous love for an older brother--a brother much, much older, a brother old enough nearly to be the boy's father--his delight in the brother's company, in his fruity cologne, his body--is the book's core, and then there's another story tacked onto it about having two affairs with Swiss men, and how cold the Swiss guys are compared to the hot, passionate men of Morocco. But whole sections of the novel seem to have slid off the sides of the page, so that I close the book feeling a hunger for what has been left unsaid, unwritten, or censored, perhaps by the same self that has been so eager to detail the intricacies of Abdelkabir's butt in and out of those sexy black underpants.
Frank Stock's translation is pretty amazing, and you feel like you are right there, in Geneva's cold capital, on the hot beaches of North Africa, or wherever Taia chooses to bring you. For me, SALVATION ARMY just needed one more thing, can't tell you what exactly, in order to recommend it to you without reservation.
McCartney looks at the book as a version of the coming-out novel that was once a staple of gay writing, given new freshness by its unique setting and, perhaps, by the extreme subject position of its main character. White views it partly as a jeremiad against Western sex tourism. I kept reading through the whole thing and couldn't find either of those books; what I saw was the astonishingly frank story of a young boy who knows his feelings are an offense to society, but who persists in them anyhow. His incestuous love for an older brother--a brother much, much older, a brother old enough nearly to be the boy's father--his delight in the brother's company, in his fruity cologne, his body--is the book's core, and then there's another story tacked onto it about having two affairs with Swiss men, and how cold the Swiss guys are compared to the hot, passionate men of Morocco. But whole sections of the novel seem to have slid off the sides of the page, so that I close the book feeling a hunger for what has been left unsaid, unwritten, or censored, perhaps by the same self that has been so eager to detail the intricacies of Abdelkabir's butt in and out of those sexy black underpants.
Frank Stock's translation is pretty amazing, and you feel like you are right there, in Geneva's cold capital, on the hot beaches of North Africa, or wherever Taia chooses to bring you. For me, SALVATION ARMY just needed one more thing, can't tell you what exactly, in order to recommend it to you without reservation.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Exotic and wonderfully naked ...
14 Nov 2010
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
Salvation Army is a coming of age memoir, no doubt, but one made exotic not only for its settings--like Marrakesh, Geneva and Morocco--but by the fact that Abdellah Taïa's first stirrings of love, his earliest pangs of sexual awakenings were for his attractive older brother, Abdelkébir. This should be an uncomfortable situation with a young boy having incestuous feelings like these, but as the first sentence of the introduction by Edmund White says: "This is a novel about love in all its forms."
I couldn't agree more. Abdellah's undefined worship/lust for his older brother was comfortably unrequited (and most likely unnoticed). However that love, the narrator's earliest most secret love, is just one of the love stories depicted in Salvation Army - among them love of family, culture, country and life itself.
I fell in love with this book -- with what it depicted and what it did not -- and with Abdellah Taïa, Morocco's very first openly gay author to publish a memoir, one so real and naked that they both will always dominate that warmest, most exotic corner of my heart. ~ Taylor Siluwé, author of Dancing With The Devil
I couldn't agree more. Abdellah's undefined worship/lust for his older brother was comfortably unrequited (and most likely unnoticed). However that love, the narrator's earliest most secret love, is just one of the love stories depicted in Salvation Army - among them love of family, culture, country and life itself.
I fell in love with this book -- with what it depicted and what it did not -- and with Abdellah Taïa, Morocco's very first openly gay author to publish a memoir, one so real and naked that they both will always dominate that warmest, most exotic corner of my heart. ~ Taylor Siluwé, author of Dancing With The Devil
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