Anelise Chen
NY, NY
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Sunday, May 1, 2011 8:34PM
Abdellah Taļa & Self-Mythology
Abdellah Taïa is a writer who reminds us of art's power to transcend boundaries and break barriers. Sartre famously wrote that genius is what man invents when he is looking for a way out; Taïa shows that courage also happens.
Taïa is the first openly gay writer to be published in Morocco. In a conversation with American novelist Dale Peck this Sunday afternoon, Taïa described his "coming out" experience--which required an incredible leap of faith.
In January 2006, Taïa was doing an interview with Tel Quel, an important magazine in Morocco. During this Tel Quel interview (some of which you can read in this English Al-Bab interview and this French Tel Quel feature), the interviewer asked Taïa whether he would mind talking about homosexuality for the article.
Since it was obvious that there was homosexuality in his writing, Taïa decided that he would not be hypocritical and hide like the intellectuals who had frustrated him in the past. So he simply agreed. The article was published in 2007, and it became his "coming out" moment.
"I knew immediately it was a big deal," Taïa said. "Before that, I was just writing--writing the truth. You just say what you have to say. And at that moment, I had to be truthful to my writings. I can't pretend like I didn't write anything in the book. I thought: let's just face the truth and see what will happen."
Taïa then described what happened after he bought the magazine with his face printed on the front cover, alongside the words: "Homosexuel envers et contre tous." He was still in Morocco then, in Tangiers. He went straight back into his hotel room and put a table and a chair against the door, so overcome with fear that someone was going to arrest him.
"It is funny to say it but not funny to live it," he said. "I come from a really poor family. I grew up with that fear. Suddenly, here I come, without deciding it, to face the consequences."
"And what were the consequences?" Peck asked.
"It's more lonely than I can have imagined," Taïa responded.
Being pegged as a "homosexual" writer solidified his reputation and it also alienated him. Suddenly, this new, young, hip writer from Morocco was "just gay." It was a way for other intellectuals to write him off. Though he was invited several times to speak on television programs, controversy followed him.
He took to walking around with a hat on. ("When celebrities put on sunglasses it's like look at me! With a hat they just think, oh he is just a good Muslim or something...") But inside, he knew there was no hiding.
The next month, he did the same interview in Arabic, and that's when the trouble began with his family. "My mother called me and said--what did you do?" His relationship with his older brother also disintegrated; they no longer speak to each other.
Peck asked Taïa how, despite his background, he was able to think of himself as an intellectual and as a writer, as anybody with any agency.
Taïa responded simply, "At one point you decide something and you keep doing that thing."
It seems that for his entire life Taïa has been undergoing a series of self-transformations through self-mythology. Transitioning from being an individual writer to a public figure would perhaps be another one of those readjustments.
An example of his myth-making: Taïa's father used to work in the Bibliothèque Générale. Because his father worked there, they were given a small place to live near the library. So, literally, he was "born into books."
"Of course, they told me this, and now I can make a myth of it. There is no shame to do that," Taïa said.
Like he decided at an early age not to play the roles given to him by Moroccan society, Taïa decided that he would go to Paris and become an intellectual.
How he came to that decision is perhaps another one of his myths: half-true, half-invented, but completely charming, persuasive, and inspiring. This is one of the great elements of his writing; he is able to take personal experiences and construct literary structures out of them.
The myth of his deciding to go to Paris happened like this: One day, Taïa went into his older brother's room and found a film magazine with actress Isabelle Adjani on the cover. He recognized immediately that she was "possessed" with a djinn, and related to her completely. Possession, perhaps a metaphor for writing or acting or playing a character, was something he could relate to deeply. He was thirteen or fourteen when he made up his mind to go to Paris and live in the same place as Isabelle Adjani.
"I prefer to say that instead of saying that I love Arthur Rimbaud, and Genet, etc etc...They don't need my help. Isabelle still needs my help," Taïa laughed.
He soon found out that Isabella Adjani's father was Algerian and that her mother was German, but she was nevertheless considered French. From that, he understood that "Frenchness" was something you could become. That to be French was not only for French people.
Another major revelation that allowed him to break through mental barriers was when he realized that everyone essentially came from the same genetic line as that "first man." This came to him as he had his legs propped up against the wall to prevent varicose veins, something he learned about on TV. Whether it was the change of blood pressure or the reduced circulation of his limbs this position induced, this revelation felt very important. He realized he was not just Abdellah, Moroccan, Arab, etc.; he could be anything. Because society is what changes and society believes something different all the time. If he was born a thousand years ago he would be a different man. Identity, then, seemed arbitrary; relative. "It somehow gave me some freedom in my head," he concluded. Anything was possible. Identity was a mask that one could put on or take off.
The last story Taïa told was about his mother. His mother was illiterate, so she would make things up about religion, what she believed, or little prayers. Each morning she would greet the day by opening the window, rounding up all her children, and directing them to look up as she talked to the sky.
"Literature can't be l'art pour l'art," Taïa said. "It has to be for people, there on the ground, like us, listening to my mother. And she was talking to the sky."
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