Salvation Army

Abdellah Taia

Chapters (6)

SALVATION ARMY

Abdellah Taïa

Introduction by Edmund White

Translated by Frank Stock

“Abdellah Taïa is a brilliant young Moroccan living in France. In this novel, appropriately, he talksabout his first contacts with Europeans. Welearn about the traditional Moroccan family, aboutSwiss sex tourists, about the Salvation Army inGeneva, about the first burgeoning of desire in ayoung Arab, about family love and carnal love.Taïa has a captivating way of taking us into hisconfidence and telling us essential truths.”

— Edmund White

SEMIOTEXT(E) NATIVE AGENTS

SALVATION ARMY

SEMIOTEXT(E) NATIVE AGENTS SERIES

Cet ouvrage, publié dans le cadre d'un programme d'aide à la publication, bénéficie du soutien financier du ministère des Affaires étrangères, du Serviceculturel de l'ambassade de France aux Etats-Unis, ainsi que de l'appui deFACE (French American Cultural Exchange).

This work, published as part of a program providing publication assistance, received financial support from the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, theCultural Services of the French Embassy in the United States and FACE(French American Cultural Exchange).

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without prior permission of the publisher.

Published by Semiotext(e)

2007 Wilshire Blvd., Suite 427, Los Angeles, CA 90057

“Cette traduction est dediée à toi, Bob Whiteman: Tu m’aimes, donc, je suis.”

—Frank Stock

Special thanks to Clélia Casagrande, Robert Dewhurst, Ariana Reines, Michael Silverblatt, and Noura Wedell.

Cover Photography: Ulf Andersen/Gamma

Back Cover Photography: Abdellah Taïa by Ulf Andersen

Design: Hedi El Kholti

French Voices Logo designed by Serge Bloch

ISBN: 978-1-58435-070-5

Distributed by The MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass, and London, England

Printed in the United States of America

Abdellah Taïa

For Mohamed, my father

Love and Loneliness—

Abdellah Taïa’s Salvation Army

This is a novel about love in all its forms. A Moroccan boy’s love for his mother. That woman’s love for her husband,despite the violence of his passion, the stinging ardor of hisjealousy. The boy’s love for his older brother, for the traces ofsperm on his underpants, for his kindness and remoteness,for his bookishness, for his womanizing, for his gentle help.

This is a book about love, about a boy’s love of his family, as intertwined as a pack of dogs, as intimate and snarling andcozy, all imbued with the same enticing smell. About theboy’s love of the French language and literature, which he isdetermined to master though he can’t really afford to buybooks, though his native language is Arabic. This is, almostparenthetically, a book about the love of men for men, aboutanonymous sex in the Geneva public toilets or the sudden,quick threesome shared with a young Pole and a young German on a train bound for Madrid.