Vivir a tu luz, de Abdellah Taïa.

good morning Abdullah good morning we are talking today with Abdula taaya the author of VI tulus one of the best books we have read this year in La lumbre abdela is a brilliant Moroccan writer and filmmaker who has been based in Paris since 1999 if I'm right thank you very much for inviting me and for your support to my to this book that is extremely special to me vi Tulu is a book that talks about parts of the life of your mother who is a character full of contradictions and contrasts and dark s sites also um the book doesn't exactly look like a tribute in in in what way has it been important for you to write this story of Malika um first of all Malika is my mother my real name in real life was mka so I chose to change her name into Malika like this I would have much more freedom to be more literary and to invent much more contradictions to this character in order to say her truth because I guess at the end of the day literature writing is about to find a way to say some truths so the truth is never uh completely beautiful never completely shiny I think human beings are um black and white Darkness and Light and I I thought I should never write a book about my mother and about the Moroccan mother in order to pay a tribute my mother was extremely um screaming shouting person fighting with all the people around her for her own reasons and I wanted to book the book to be representing that and a nonstop shouting woman and non-stop fighting Moroccan woman in fact in some moments I have felt that your book talks a lot about the Dark Side of being a mother in general which is to turn into the kind of person that you hate the most because uh because of the adversities sometimes that can be so strong to eliminate any other option of being a person but to harden the heart and survive just survive and make sure your children's survive too but doesn't it have any margin of Relativity do you really think that uh this Malika your mother or or the character uh didn't have the chance of being a better person for her children or for herself well I think for this specific woman Malika the fights were more than fights it was Wars because she's coming from the French colonization from the 30s from the real poverty where survival doesn't have the same meaning I guess as today because this woman had nothing to eat at certain point like to survive it's not the idea of surviving it's the actual surviving and how to make uh how to think the world around you and just to find the the right person you are going to in order to beg to beg for food to beg uh for something to eat for you and for your children and while doing that not losing what is the essence of you as a human uh person and especially as women and I think as you said until today this just the society the the whole world doesn't G give yet women uh the the the the credits for what they are doing every day even the women who are living in some bouro apartment in Paris Madrid or London are still sacrificing themselves just by doing the dishes and making the house uh clean and all these things this is daily War and the the the man the straight man and the society uh doesn't see that this is sacrifices so I wanted to show this woman not only in the L uh desperate place but from that desperate place she is fighting she is not putting herself as the victim the society wants her to be so this is what the the main thing for me in this book to give credit to the women in general but not to give them credit by by but by by giving a sweet image of what is woman because I don't think women are that sweet image we imagine that feminine femininity that is meaning like doil they do nothing my sisters I have six sisters and my mother I saw them all the time um analyzing the the the neighborhood analyzing Morocco analyzing what is going on politically on TV and destroying all these politic discourses they are putting on us and I think as a gay person I beneficiate from that because I didn't need any big writer from Madrid or Paris or or New York to help me to be gay I see I saw my mother my sisters doing the most they could do like incredible incredible resistance uh to all these things to the all these walls to the all these these false words they put in our mouth because this is what is literature for me these words I am going to to put they have to taste some some something close at least to the truth I totally agree with with what you are saying now because I I felt that when when reading the book but uh your your book doesn't only talk about Malika it talks a lot about alal too about the Moroccan society and and history about Jafar and about atmet atmet who doesn't even appear in a direct way in your novel is the character in which I've been uh thinking the most after finishing the book it's like you have concluded the the story of mikica and and just when you get ready to have a natural conclusion p uh you open the Pandora's box with the very dramatic and unfinished story of Jafar and admed in the last pages living the reader living us with a disturbed mind full of questions and and full of pain well I think that's if I might say my style until now I always wrote books with um how to say with fragments it's not classical writing it's not classical phrases I like to find the right um moments and just to find the right structure to put them next to each other without resolving anything I think it's like U Cinema you you don't have to show everything you don't have to tell everything in order to convey some something some story this book is about the mother this is the book of the mother it's not the book of Ahmed it's not the book of alal it's not even the book of the French woman Monique yes these characters are here but what we see it's how this mother is facing these other characters with or how with her own thoughts and in order to construct something because in this old book she is always constructing something so even her gay son yes she didn't protect him yes she didn't see what uh the neighborhood did to him the rapes the anels but she cannot accept that France would take another of her people and that her son would tell her that Paris is freedom so I wanted her even even if she is unjust I wanted her to to give that that that perspective that we don't hear today because the West is until now is presenting itself as the place of the right human rights and complete Freedom not only for the west but of the for the rest of the world and of course we see clearly today that it is not true my mother knew that before me abdulah I have read you say in some interview uh that uh writing is not a healing activity for you but uh it doesn't uh um help you in your real life because Only Love Can Heal troubled Souls you have already uh mentioned something about it by now in in this uh conversation so as a writer what is what is it then the reason for you to to write yeah it doesn't heal like it doesn't heal me from the wounds I have I I can say that I have some pleasure uh from the idea that I am uh obsessed with something and I am not going to let go this thing until I am writing it that's the pleasure that I don't let go the that thing I have in my mind I think for the healing I to I go towards uh uh songs it's like like any human being I listen nonstop to songs because I live alone and I like anyone on this planet Earth I expect to find someone to love me because there is no other way that I am going to heal my per myself only by myself and to expect from something that is extremely deep literature to heal me it's the opposite actually literature is something extremely dark deep and I hope that it help other people but not me it's not helping and understand and completely agree with that not not writing because I don't write but even when when reading is also a little bit like that and just to finish ABD I would like to know uh what does this title means for you as it is a sentence from Monique the French character referring to her feelings toward Morocco that um you write in your in one of the dialogues I I believe in in your book what does it mean for you that concept oful well the title is coming again from the words my mother used to say in front of us um yeah I mean just imagine a house of only three rooms with 11 persons and imagine all this sometimes all this person sad the whole family is sad and tragic and there is no hope and everyone is in its corner and in the silence 11 persons sad depressed because there is no solution for for us to find something and someone has to save us from this sadness that is being so contagious uh in in in in the house so my M what my my mother again used to do is she would go out and go to some molum mum of the Saints CD mul Ibrahim yes a saint in my city in Morocco Sal and there she would I guess she would pray she would uh do something to heal herself actually to take this sadness out of her body and out of her blood and she would bring to us a candle a candle and every time she would come come back to the house she would tell us I brought you the light we are going to live now with this life and in Moroccan it's so beautiful the expression nor I brought you light so voila it's so again it's the whole imaginer of the book it's it's only hers she was the big son we are only turning around her and we accept that yeah when when uh before reading the book that's where I felt that viu was some kind kind of uh um it was referring to to the light of the mother that was described in the book that's why I I was like surprised when it was Monique the character that uh said the the sentence but now I understand all right so thanks a lot for for having this conversation it has been really interesting um I'm going to I feel like like reading all your other books that I didn't read before but now it makes a lot of sense and and I really feel like thank you bye-bye