Mohamed Leftah Libri

Pubblicato postumo nel 2008, questo romanzo provocatorio racconta il risveglio sessuale tardivo di un pilota dell'aviazione in pensione che inizia una pericolosa relazione con un servitore maschile. Il capitano Ni’mat, un riservista dell'esercito egiziano sconfitto dagli israeliani nel 1967, si ritrova invecchiato e inattivo, trascorrendo le sue giornate in un lussuoso club privato al Cairo con ex commilitoni. Una notte, il capitano Ni’mat ha un sogno straordinario e inquietante: vede la bellezza pura incarnata dal suo valet nubiano. Risvegliato da queste immagini ardenti, si introduce nella capanna dove dorme il giovane. La visione del suo corpo nudo disturba profondamente il capitano Ni’mat, capovolgendo improvvisamente la sua esistenza monotona. Ignaro della moglie, scopre l'amore fisico con il suo valet. In un paese dove il fondamentalismo religioso cresce ogni giorno di più, questa passione proibita lo porterà al culmine della felicità, almeno per un certo periodo.

The acclaimed Moroccan author’s debut novel, this stunning portrait of the world of sex work describes its sordid reality with beautiful, poetic prose. Available now for the first time in English, Demoiselles of Numidia offers an intimate glimpse into the lives of young women working in a Casablanca brothel—their relationships with each other and with their pimps, their dramas, and the rare moments of happiness that bloom in this violent underbelly. Originally published in French in 1992, the novel quickly established Mohamed Leftah as one of Morocco’s great writers. It showcases the extraordinary combination of elegant language and graphic physicality, as well as the nuanced questioning of traditional gender roles, which would come to characterize his works.

In this poignant account of a classmate’s suicide, the acclaimed Moroccan author gives both a biting critique of small-town bigotry in the 1960s and a moving tribute to the fleeting beauty of adolescence. In Settat in the 1960s, when it was still a tiny village, a young man leapt to his death in front of his stunned class and their teacher, left holding a brief, devastating suicide note. Among the students was Mohamed Leftah. Haunted by the uncommon grace of that desperate act, and the tragic image of his body lying in the courtyard, Leftah penned this chronicle of life at the time, marked by repressed desire and shame. A fiery yet thoughtful meditation on taboo acts—homosexuality, adultery, suicide—and the hypocrisy and cruelty often found in those who judge them, Endless Fall also offers a fascinating window into the mind of the seminal writer.