A Country for Dying

An exquisite novel of North Africans in Paris by "one of the most original and necessary voices in world literature"

WINNER OF THE 2021 PEN TRANSLATION PRIZE

Paris, Summer 2010.

Zahira is 40 years old, Moroccan, a prostitute, traumatized by her father's suicide decades prior, and in love with a man who no longer loves her.
Zannouba, Zahira's friend and protege, formerly known as Aziz, prepares for gender confirmation surgery and reflects on the reoccuring trauma of loss, including the loss of her pre-transition male persona.
Mojtaba is a gay Iranian revolutionary who, having fled to Paris, seeks refuge with Zahira for the month of Ramadan.
Meanwhile, Allal, Zahira's first love back in Morocco, travels to Paris to find Zahira.

Through swirling, perpendicular narratives, A Country for Dying follows the inner lives of emigrants as they contend with the space between their dreams and their realities, a schism of a postcolonial world where, as Taïa writes, "So many people find themselves in the same situation. It is our destiny: To pay with our bodies for other people's future."


About the Author
Born in Rabat, Morocco in 1973, Abdellah Taïa has written many novels, including Salvation Army, which he also made into an award-winning film, and Infidels (Seven Stories 2016), translated by Alison Strayer. He lives in Paris.

Translator Emma Ramadan is based in Providence, Rhode Island, where she co-owns Riffraff Bookstore and Bar. She's the recipient of an NEA fellowship, a Fulbright grant, and the 2018 Albertine Prize. Her translations include Anne Garréta's Sphinx and Not One Day, Virginie Despentes's Pretty Things, Ahmed Bouanani's The Shutters, and Marcus Malte's The Boy.