A melancholy Arabic

A melancholy Arabic, Abdellah Taya, Irun, Alberdania, 2009 (2008)
This is a new book by the author of Salé in Morocco, which he again raised up the uneasy coexistence of personal original roots and a new life in Paris. Anyway, this book presents a more coherent argument that the former Taya, Red Fez (2004). This time, the internal structure gives us four separate parts: “Remembrance,” “I”, “Run away” and “Writing”. Four pieces of life of the author or the author alleged that from the perspective with a personal-identification with the protagonist’s name-address various aspects of migration, the contrast of cultures, but above all the love between adults, compared with a protagonist who recognizes “falling in love at first sight”.
Meeting again in a poetic prose Tayá very interesting that sometimes brings us closer to the poetic prose in fact, are some verses. However, the strength of the first half, with the near rape of teenage protagonist, does not recover. The later stories are moving more in longing and desire for a perfect love that the character is not enough in love affairs, a young man who summed up his anxiety very clearly: “I want to love” (p. 31). The last part, with letters and texts crossed with Slimane’s lover, is uneven; breaks the spell that had created the previous chapters in the reader. However, this is a book to savor, without any attempt to discover any major element.