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The Bastion of Tears

June 06, 20257:00 p.m.

MADRID

Casa Árabe Auditorium (at Calle Alcalá, 62). 7:00 p.m. Free entry until the event’s capacity is reached.

In French and Spanish, with live consecutive translation.

On Friday, June 6 in Madrid, Casa Árabe will be welcoming writer Abdellah Taïa for the presentation of his latest book. The author will be taking part in a dialogue with Karim Hauser, Casa Árabe’s Culture Coordinator.

Years after the death of his mother, Yusef, a Moroccan professor living in exile in France, returns to Salé, his hometown, to sell the flat he inherited. As Yusef delves into the tiny streets of the present-day city, a lost world takes shape, where differences in gender and class come at a high price.

As he prepares to fully embrace the legacy of a terrible childhood filled with abuse, though one also marked by a deep love for his sisters and his deceased mother, Yusef visits the “Bastion of Tears,” the ancient walls of Salé, to fulfill his last promise to Nayib, a friend from the past.

Abdellah Taïa

Born in Rabat in 1973, after studying literature at the Mohamed V University in Rabat, he settled in Paris in 1998, where he began his career as a Moroccan writer in the French language. Up to now, he has had eleven novels published, as well as other texts: Mon Maroc (My Morocco, 2000), Le Rouge du tarbouche (The Red of the Fez, 2004), L’armée du salut (Salvation Army, 2006), Une mélancolie arabe (An Arab Melancholy, 2008), Le Jour du roi (The King’s Day, 2010), Infidèles (Infidels, 2012), Un pays pour mourir (A Country for Dying, 2015), Celui qui est digne d’être aimé (He Who Is Worthy of Love, 2017), La Vie lente (Slow Life, 2019), Vivre à ta lumière (Living in Your Light, 2022) and Le Bastion des larmes (The Bastion of Tears, 2024). Also paying close attention to current events in Morocco and the Arab world, he regularly contributes to the French and international press through opinion articles. In 2013, he directed his first feature film, L’armée du salut (Salvation Army) based on his novel of the same name, and in 2014 he will be premiering Cabo Negro. He currently resides in Paris.