Infidels
SynopsisPlot
Set in Salé, Morocco—the hometown Abdellah Taïa fled but to which he returns again and again in his acclaimed fiction and films—Infidels follows the life of Jallal, the son of a prostitute witch doctor—"a woman who knew men, humanity, better than anyone. In sex. Beyond sex." As a ten-year-old sidekick to his mother, Jallal spits in the face of her enemies both real and imagined. The cast of characters that rush into their lives are unforgettable for their dreams of love and belonging that unravel in turn.
Story
About this book
Infidels is a novel by Abdellah Taïa set in Salé, a city on Morocco's Atlantic coast, across the river from the capital, Rabat. The story centers on Jallal, the son of a woman who works as both a prostitute and a traditional healer. At ten, Jallal accompanies his mother through daily life, defending her fiercely against those who scorn or threaten her. The book is built as a sequence of monologues, each voice carrying its own grief, longing, or anger.
Through these voices, the book traces Jallal's path out of boyhood toward the pull of jihad. The characters who pass through his world carry their own hopes for love and belonging, and those hopes come apart in turn under pressures of poverty, stigma, and desire. Taïa draws on the atmosphere of Salé, the city he left but returns to repeatedly in his fiction and films.
The monologue form gives each speaker a compressed space to talk. Confession, private fear, and open confrontation follow one another without pause. Taïa writes about sexuality, faith, and family bonds in a setting where all three are governed by strict social codes, and the tension between private feeling and public expectation runs through every voice.
