Meeting with Abdellah Taïa and Karim Kattan

Building a homosexual identity in a postcolonial world
In a political and social moment of a rare violence, fuelled by Middle Eastern tensions and the rise of racist ideas in the West, it seemed useful to us to offer the word to two authors who have placed in the heart of their writing the question of identities and who question the place of the Arab Lgbtqia+ communities around the mediterranean. The meeting will be accompanied by the screening of "Never stop shouting" by Abdullah Taïa.

Meeting with Abdellah Taïa and Karim Kattan
“I think the older I am, the more I am undertaking a deconstruction of all the identities in which I have advanced or that I have volunteered to assert, to arrive at such or such result, in my life or in what could be called my literary career in France. Since 2010, I have been trying to destroy all the walls, to destroy all the definitions that helped me to get to Paris and to tell me “I am a worthy person to do such or such thing, to publish a book, to contact a publishing house” or “to be homosexual and Arabic, to say it, it will interest people, it will touch them”. Abdellah Taïa (Interview with Antoine Idier, Fixxion 12, 2016).

[Before programme]
NE JAMAIS S’ARRE DE CRIER d’Abdellah Taïa
France • 2023 • 10 min
The writer and filmmaker Abdellah Taïa wrote a letter to his gay nephew, Brahim, to help him out of fear, support him, walk beside him. Love him hard.

Abdellah Taïa
Born in 1973 in Salé in Morocco, Abdellah Taïa is a writer and filmmaker. He now lives in Paris and is the author of “An Arab Melanchoia” (Seuil, 2008), “Day of the King” (Seuil, 2010) rewarded by the Flore Award and “A country to die” (Seuil, 2015). His last book, "Le Bastion des larmes" (Julliard, 2024) received the prize of the French language and the December prize. On the cinema side, he adapted to cinema in 2014 his book “The Salvation Army” (Seuil, 2006) and produced a second film “Capo Negro” in 2024. He is the first Moroccan figure to have publicly come out.
Abdellah Taïa will sign his last book "Le Bastion des larmes" (Julliard, 2024) following the meeting.

Karim Kattan
Palestinian writer of Bethlehem, born in Jerusalem. In 1989, Karim Kattan was a doctor in comparative and written literature of fiction, essays, poems in both English and French. His first novel, "Le Palais des deux hills" (Ed. Elyzad) was published in 2021 and won the Prix des cinq continents de la francophonie. His second novel, "L’Éden à l’aube" was published in 2024 and was pre-selected for several prizes including the Renaudot 2024 Prize.
Karim Kattan will sign his last book “L’Éden à l’aube” (Elyzadest, 2024) following the meeting..