Abdellah Taïa (Salé, 1973) is an openly gay Moroccan writer and journalist, who has lived in Paris since 1998 in self-exile. He studied French Literature in Rabat, and in the mid 1990s, he moved to Geneva to continue his studies, which he finalised at the Paris-Sorbonne. He currently works as a journalist for Le Monde.

In 2006, he publicly came out of the closet in an interview with the political magazine Tel Quel, and was the first Moroccan intellectual to do so in this manner. As a result, he was highly criticised in Morocco.

Taïa´s books not only deal with his life as a homosexual in a homophobic environment, but also with the social experiences of the Moroccan generation that grew up in the 1980s and 1990s.

To date, he has published four novels: My Morocco (2000), Le rouge du tarbouche (2004), The Salvation Army (2006) and An Arab Melancholy (2008).
 
Sources:

• Author´s official web page

• Profile in The English Pen World Atlas website

Additional information:

• Interview in the newspaper La Vanguardia

• Consult the availability of publications at the Casa África Mediateca (Media Library)