An Out Gay Moroccan....

I wish him the best...but I note that he's chosen to leave Morocco..

A soft-spoken slip of a young man, Abdellah Taia hardly looks the part of an iconoclast. But as Morocco’s first high-profile, openly gay man, Taia has made it his mission to win acceptance for homosexuals throughout the Muslim world.

Taia has defied Moroccan society’s don’t-ask, don’t-tell attitude toward homosexuality - and prison sentences that are still on the books in the North African kingdom - to write five autobiographical novels about growing up poor and gay in the northern coastal city of Sale.

The novels, peppered with sexually explicit passages, have catapulted him to fame in his native country and made him the de-facto poster child of its budding gay rights movement.

His work has sparked harsh criticism. Taia said some outraged critics have called on him to renounce Moroccan citizenship so as “not to bring shame” on the country.

It’s also alienated him from his parents and eight siblings, who figure extensively in the books and complain that Taia has publicly humiliated them.

But the 35-year-old author insists he’s never been cowed by fallout from his work.

“When I write, I feel a sense of urgency, as if my life depended on it,” Taia said in an interview in Paris, where he has lived for almost a decade. “When I first started writing, it never occurred to me to invent some fictional character and talk about made-up things.”

His latest novel, “L’armee du Salut,” or “Salvation Army,” focuses on his decision to move to Europe. An English translation recently came out in the United States, with an introduction by author Edmund White.

Though Taia immigrated legally - he was awarded a scholarship to study in Switzerland - his experiences in Geneva paralleled those of thousands Moroccans living in Europe without papers.

I don't understand the last paragraph...I don't see how being in Europe legally 'parallel's' illegal immigrants.