Endless Fall
A Little Chronicle
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- $9.99
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
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.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Moroccan novelist Leftah (1946–2008; Captain Ni'mat's Last Battle) reflects on the shock of witnessing a classmate's suicide in this fragmentary memoir. In the early 1960s, shortly after Morocco gained independence from France, Leftah's schoolmate, Khalid, leapt to his death over the railing outside their history classroom in the small, conservative village of Settat. Khalid left behind a note wishing happiness to his adulterous mother and his friend on the soccer team, whom Leftah speculates may have also been his lover. Leftah buttresses his memories of the incident with complementary episodes—his assault by police while protesting at the French embassy; the drowning death of a Settat criminal known as "El Rey"—that loop back to the tragedy in somewhat cryptic ways. He also takes his own motives into consideration, wondering whether his "little chronicle" is "an act of scavenging or, on the contrary, something aimed at saving from the forgotten the tragic destiny of a gorgeous young man." What emerges is a searching and poetic elegy for a life cut short. This slim volume packs a formidable punch.
