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How to Leave the World
Everyone is asking about his identity. Gay? Muslim? French? Moroccan? Instead of choosing a side, he writes a book. A book about the forest and the city, Paris and Tangiers, shame and forgiveness, dating apps and spiritual discovery. A book about growing up as a diaspora kid in rural France, with desires that want to emerge at any cost. Told in mesmerising prose, How to Leave the World is a beautiful non-answer.
150 pages, Paperback
Published September 23, 2024
15 people are currently reading
1037 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 42 reviews
July 23, 2023
j'ai un rapport un peu ambivalent aux textes très épars, très littéraires, sensoriels et fragmentés - d'un côté, je trouve ça sublime, évocateur, très fort, ça vibre d'un rythme organique et ça raconte les émotions en temps réel, et de l'autre, il faut savoir que j'ai un très petit cerveau et que lorsqu'il n'y a que des vibes sans réelle intrigue ni réel fil rouge j'ai tendance à ne rien me rappeler de très précis après coup, tu me demandes de retenir une phrase et de pouvoir la citer après coup je vais te rigoler dessus, du coup quand je sors d'un livre comme celui-ci je me sens à la fois très touchée très émue et très flottante, l'impression de ne rien avoir à dire de pertinent dessus si ce n'est : "bouleversant" comme si j'étais une critique Télérama
bon de façon plus sérieuse, c'est un très beau premier roman qui me donne sacrément envie de relire l'auteur dans une forme peut-être plus structurée, moins au fil de la plume, avec des portraits de personnages plus installés et plus de linéarité - ceci n'est en rien une critique du choix narratif de l'auteur dans ce livre-ci, rien qu'un petit souhait égoïste de simple personne aimant bien les romans avec des zistoires
l'auteur décrit sans décortiquer, raconte sans ravager, et il y a beaucoup de beauté dans cette retenue, qui n'est pas tout à fait une pudeur (le narrateur va parfois très loin dans l'intime, dans la douleur), mais une forme de délicatesse, de choix de ne pas blesser, de ne rien abîmer, comme si le livre voulait avoir le moins d'impact possible sur les temps, les gens et les mots qu'il raconte, et ça m'a beaucoup touchée, cette démarche. j'ai envie que ce soit possible d'écrire sans instrumentaliser, et des livres comme celui-ci m'y font croire. alors pour tout ça, merci Marouane
(PS ça parle extrêmement bien d'identité, de ruralité, d'arabité, d'homosexualité, de ces silences chargés et informés que certaines familles choisissent d'entretenir, par convention, par compromis, d'amour, de deuil, de silence, et c'est au-delà de ça un magnifique objet-livre, très beau travail d'édition et de fabrication de la part des Nouvelles Editions du Réveil !)
bon de façon plus sérieuse, c'est un très beau premier roman qui me donne sacrément envie de relire l'auteur dans une forme peut-être plus structurée, moins au fil de la plume, avec des portraits de personnages plus installés et plus de linéarité - ceci n'est en rien une critique du choix narratif de l'auteur dans ce livre-ci, rien qu'un petit souhait égoïste de simple personne aimant bien les romans avec des zistoires
l'auteur décrit sans décortiquer, raconte sans ravager, et il y a beaucoup de beauté dans cette retenue, qui n'est pas tout à fait une pudeur (le narrateur va parfois très loin dans l'intime, dans la douleur), mais une forme de délicatesse, de choix de ne pas blesser, de ne rien abîmer, comme si le livre voulait avoir le moins d'impact possible sur les temps, les gens et les mots qu'il raconte, et ça m'a beaucoup touchée, cette démarche. j'ai envie que ce soit possible d'écrire sans instrumentaliser, et des livres comme celui-ci m'y font croire. alors pour tout ça, merci Marouane
(PS ça parle extrêmement bien d'identité, de ruralité, d'arabité, d'homosexualité, de ces silences chargés et informés que certaines familles choisissent d'entretenir, par convention, par compromis, d'amour, de deuil, de silence, et c'est au-delà de ça un magnifique objet-livre, très beau travail d'édition et de fabrication de la part des Nouvelles Editions du Réveil !)
January 8, 2025
4.5. The transformation that took place in this book was a beautiful thing to witness.
Written in fragmented poetic prose, the first half of this short book shows a young boy and his transition to early manhood as he struggles to reconcile with his identity, to find his place in the world, to find if he even belongs in this world. Born to a French mother and Moroccan father and living in France, the narrator feels torn, he feels like he is neither adequately French nor can he fully claim being Arabic. To add to this confusion, he’s known from a young age that he is gay, something that he knows he can never say aloud to his father.
The French countryside is the refuge of his childhood, but as he gets older, as more development destroys the natural spaces around him, as the fog and haze that surround his days intensifies, he knows he must leave. In Paris, his depression worsens, the freedoms of the city don’t free him at all. The anger that others expect from him becomes a self fulfilling prophecy because, like his father, he is angry and there’s a rage within him, simmering just beneath the surface.
I was enamored by this at the start, the writing so poetic but also so lucid and his thoughts so earnest and sincere. As it neared the halfway mark, the depths of his depression and bitterness began to wear on me. Then the second half came around and saved it all. The hope, the respite, the reconciliations that the second half brought was a balm to the soul.
I really loved this. There are no answers on how to leave the world, but I think by the end, Bakhti has discovered how to stay.
Written in fragmented poetic prose, the first half of this short book shows a young boy and his transition to early manhood as he struggles to reconcile with his identity, to find his place in the world, to find if he even belongs in this world. Born to a French mother and Moroccan father and living in France, the narrator feels torn, he feels like he is neither adequately French nor can he fully claim being Arabic. To add to this confusion, he’s known from a young age that he is gay, something that he knows he can never say aloud to his father.
The French countryside is the refuge of his childhood, but as he gets older, as more development destroys the natural spaces around him, as the fog and haze that surround his days intensifies, he knows he must leave. In Paris, his depression worsens, the freedoms of the city don’t free him at all. The anger that others expect from him becomes a self fulfilling prophecy because, like his father, he is angry and there’s a rage within him, simmering just beneath the surface.
I was enamored by this at the start, the writing so poetic but also so lucid and his thoughts so earnest and sincere. As it neared the halfway mark, the depths of his depression and bitterness began to wear on me. Then the second half came around and saved it all. The hope, the respite, the reconciliations that the second half brought was a balm to the soul.
I really loved this. There are no answers on how to leave the world, but I think by the end, Bakhti has discovered how to stay.
May 22, 2024
j'ai rarement lu quelque chose d'aussi juste sur les relations familiales et notamment sur la figure du père. j'ai l'impression que je me suis réconciliée avec le mien par procuration, c'est tout de même incroyable.
une très belle prose, j'ai hâte de lire les futurs écrits de Marouane Bakhti <3
une très belle prose, j'ai hâte de lire les futurs écrits de Marouane Bakhti <3
February 26, 2025
Shortlisted for the 2025 Republic of Consciousness Prize, UK & Ireland, for small presses
Lust in my heart, I wanted to leave at any cost. Leave the ugliness, leave the gloomy patches of green amid vast expanses of grey. I wanted to destroy everything, take the country out of the boy and vice versa, abandon the sexual wasteland I had wandered for so long. Au revoir and adieu.
And yet that was where my child-self learned what makes a tree a tree and how to cradle a newborn animal in his hands.
I can see myself, disgusted with all of them, along the flat route the bus would take. The tragedy of not seeing another creature like me, anywhere.
The vastness of that suburban sprawl, doomed to a wild unharmony, still takes centre stage in my memory.
A boy at the edge of a field full of livestock, barbed wire against my legs.
My heart is a copse of trees filled with black stones, the looming terror of being caught red-handed in desire.
My heart is a copse of trees filled with shark’s teeth, the ones my father brought me back from the desert.
And beneath the skin of slowworms, I sense eggs ready to hatch.
How to Leave the World (2024) is Lara Vergnaud's translation of Comment sortir du monde (2023) by Marouane Bakhti.
The narrator of the novel is the son of a French Christian mother and a Moroccan muslim immigrant father, gay, from a rural background but eventually moving to Paris, caught between different identities and religions, and with his sexuality, initially strongly rejected by his father, forming a barrier to each.
This at customs control, from when he goes to Morocco for his grandmother's funeral:
Where am I from?
What’s my connection to this country?
Why is it that in my passport (my French passport), on the visa pages there are so many red and blue stamps for Tangiers, Marrakesh, Essaouira, Agadir . . .
He asks again and for the fifirst time, I’m not irritated. I feel a swell of pride. I answer that it’s my father, he’s my connection to this country. I’d like to tell the officer everything, tell him about the others and the feeling of waste that comes after death.
Things get heated when he asks me, angrily, disdainfully, with cruel indifffference, why I don’t have my card.
My ID card, mine, not the ones I’ve seen, that belong to my family, my aunts, my father. No, my card with my name and my face, my identity on a piece of paper.
I answer, ‘I’m going to get one, soon, inshallah.’
He gives me a surly, offifficious smile, and I feel claimed. Finally, I’ve found the word: claimed. I’m wanted as an integrated, defined element of a country. I’m wanted as an Arab.
A country that avoided me, eluded me every morning, every day and every night that someone furrowed their brows when they looked at my mixed face. My face puckered by indecision, by ethnic uncertainty (what a terrible term, but that’s what comes).
France doesn’t want me. It has me, cruelly so. It owns me without a second thought, but now, here in this place, I’m being claimed.
This is a novel that poses questions, rather than providing answers, written in episodic, poetic prose. It didn't entirely grab me - a fragmentary novella after a single-sentence 400 page Krasznahorkai novel on neo-Nazis was perhaps too much of a shift in reading style - but well written, distinctive, and one I would recommend.
The judges' citation
“An urgent, bleakly funny, fragmentary account of displacement, queer desire, and finding a place in the world. Using a collage technique, Bakhti has produced an outstanding novel about identity and endurance.”
The publisher
Divided is a publisher in Brussels and London. Not knowing is its unpower.
At large we publish authors who cannot balance or resolve their contradictions, who struggle to make peace in the industry or genre or category or world in which they end up. There is resistance to categories and commodification. The experimental form of the writing comes out of need. There is no self-preservation if you want change.
Lust in my heart, I wanted to leave at any cost. Leave the ugliness, leave the gloomy patches of green amid vast expanses of grey. I wanted to destroy everything, take the country out of the boy and vice versa, abandon the sexual wasteland I had wandered for so long. Au revoir and adieu.
And yet that was where my child-self learned what makes a tree a tree and how to cradle a newborn animal in his hands.
I can see myself, disgusted with all of them, along the flat route the bus would take. The tragedy of not seeing another creature like me, anywhere.
The vastness of that suburban sprawl, doomed to a wild unharmony, still takes centre stage in my memory.
A boy at the edge of a field full of livestock, barbed wire against my legs.
My heart is a copse of trees filled with black stones, the looming terror of being caught red-handed in desire.
My heart is a copse of trees filled with shark’s teeth, the ones my father brought me back from the desert.
And beneath the skin of slowworms, I sense eggs ready to hatch.
How to Leave the World (2024) is Lara Vergnaud's translation of Comment sortir du monde (2023) by Marouane Bakhti.
The narrator of the novel is the son of a French Christian mother and a Moroccan muslim immigrant father, gay, from a rural background but eventually moving to Paris, caught between different identities and religions, and with his sexuality, initially strongly rejected by his father, forming a barrier to each.
This at customs control, from when he goes to Morocco for his grandmother's funeral:
Where am I from?
What’s my connection to this country?
Why is it that in my passport (my French passport), on the visa pages there are so many red and blue stamps for Tangiers, Marrakesh, Essaouira, Agadir . . .
He asks again and for the fifirst time, I’m not irritated. I feel a swell of pride. I answer that it’s my father, he’s my connection to this country. I’d like to tell the officer everything, tell him about the others and the feeling of waste that comes after death.
Things get heated when he asks me, angrily, disdainfully, with cruel indifffference, why I don’t have my card.
My ID card, mine, not the ones I’ve seen, that belong to my family, my aunts, my father. No, my card with my name and my face, my identity on a piece of paper.
I answer, ‘I’m going to get one, soon, inshallah.’
He gives me a surly, offifficious smile, and I feel claimed. Finally, I’ve found the word: claimed. I’m wanted as an integrated, defined element of a country. I’m wanted as an Arab.
A country that avoided me, eluded me every morning, every day and every night that someone furrowed their brows when they looked at my mixed face. My face puckered by indecision, by ethnic uncertainty (what a terrible term, but that’s what comes).
France doesn’t want me. It has me, cruelly so. It owns me without a second thought, but now, here in this place, I’m being claimed.
This is a novel that poses questions, rather than providing answers, written in episodic, poetic prose. It didn't entirely grab me - a fragmentary novella after a single-sentence 400 page Krasznahorkai novel on neo-Nazis was perhaps too much of a shift in reading style - but well written, distinctive, and one I would recommend.
The judges' citation
“An urgent, bleakly funny, fragmentary account of displacement, queer desire, and finding a place in the world. Using a collage technique, Bakhti has produced an outstanding novel about identity and endurance.”
The publisher
Divided is a publisher in Brussels and London. Not knowing is its unpower.
At large we publish authors who cannot balance or resolve their contradictions, who struggle to make peace in the industry or genre or category or world in which they end up. There is resistance to categories and commodification. The experimental form of the writing comes out of need. There is no self-preservation if you want change.
Want to read
January 18, 2026he's adding another translated novella to his tbr (everyone act surprised)
April 8, 2023
C’était je trouve, une lecture rapide, presque précipitée de ma part, elle en valait tout de même la peine.
J’avais hâte d’en avoir plus disons, de lire les mots de Marouane Bakhti encore et encore, jusqu’à ce que j’en finisse.
La lecture étant maintenant terminé, j’en veux encore.
C’était poétique, ça nous plaçait dans une bulle à nous, là où l’on entend que des bruits sourds peut-être.
J’aimerai dire que c’était mélancolique, mais je n’y arrive pas, je n’ai pas trouvé cela mélancolique, soulageant oui, peinant, triste, beau, nostalgique, aussi, mais pas mélancolique.
Lire ces mots, c’est couper sa respiration en empathie au narrateur, jusqu’à ce qu’il aille mieux, jusqu’à ce qu’il puisse lui, respirer.
On retrouvait de très jolies tournures de phrases, des illustrations par les mots, des souvenirs, des douleurs qui étaient écrites avec tendresse.
Certains jeux retrouvés tout au long du livre m’ont beaucoup plus,
- le mécanisme récurrent de l’expression “toute vérité n’est pas bonne à dire” construit je trouve, l’ironie même de la situation du narrateur.
Il se tait, il ne dit rien, il laisse les gens réagir et il appréhende leur réaction, il voudrait pourtant en parler, mais toute vérité n’est pas bonne à dire.
- le narrateur observe et pense, et il nous fait part de ses conclusions, de ce qu’il voit, ça le calme probablement, ça lui donne espoir. On lit "je peux en guérir", on compatis.
Bien sûr, la lecture est d’autant plus bonne quand on l’a reconnais. Marouane Bakthi dresse au fil des pages, le poids du tabou, la manière dont on se sent écrasés par celui-ci, la douleur qu’on lui inflige, la douleur de sa sexualité, de son identité.
Alors il dit, “avec mon père, on se tolère”, et ça nous soulage et c’est l’esquisse d’un sourire, et on est désolés.
«J'avais cette habitude "étonnante pour un garçon", répétaient mes tantes, d'aimer m'adosser aux sedaris ou aux canapés de cuir et puis ne rien y faire. Y attendre que les femmes se mettent à parler. Qu'elles citent leurs parents, qu'elles disent le mal qu'elles savent sur les voisins. Elles se soutiennent dans des situations à peine dites, même entre elles, des choses murmurées, des complicités J'avais une grande assiduité à les étudier. Ces conversations de révoltées et de résignées, j'y habitais pendant des après-midi entiers.»
C’est beau, poétique et ça nous est familier.
J’avais hâte d’en avoir plus disons, de lire les mots de Marouane Bakhti encore et encore, jusqu’à ce que j’en finisse.
La lecture étant maintenant terminé, j’en veux encore.
C’était poétique, ça nous plaçait dans une bulle à nous, là où l’on entend que des bruits sourds peut-être.
J’aimerai dire que c’était mélancolique, mais je n’y arrive pas, je n’ai pas trouvé cela mélancolique, soulageant oui, peinant, triste, beau, nostalgique, aussi, mais pas mélancolique.
Lire ces mots, c’est couper sa respiration en empathie au narrateur, jusqu’à ce qu’il aille mieux, jusqu’à ce qu’il puisse lui, respirer.
On retrouvait de très jolies tournures de phrases, des illustrations par les mots, des souvenirs, des douleurs qui étaient écrites avec tendresse.
Certains jeux retrouvés tout au long du livre m’ont beaucoup plus,
- le mécanisme récurrent de l’expression “toute vérité n’est pas bonne à dire” construit je trouve, l’ironie même de la situation du narrateur.
Il se tait, il ne dit rien, il laisse les gens réagir et il appréhende leur réaction, il voudrait pourtant en parler, mais toute vérité n’est pas bonne à dire.
- le narrateur observe et pense, et il nous fait part de ses conclusions, de ce qu’il voit, ça le calme probablement, ça lui donne espoir. On lit "je peux en guérir", on compatis.
Bien sûr, la lecture est d’autant plus bonne quand on l’a reconnais. Marouane Bakthi dresse au fil des pages, le poids du tabou, la manière dont on se sent écrasés par celui-ci, la douleur qu’on lui inflige, la douleur de sa sexualité, de son identité.
Alors il dit, “avec mon père, on se tolère”, et ça nous soulage et c’est l’esquisse d’un sourire, et on est désolés.
«J'avais cette habitude "étonnante pour un garçon", répétaient mes tantes, d'aimer m'adosser aux sedaris ou aux canapés de cuir et puis ne rien y faire. Y attendre que les femmes se mettent à parler. Qu'elles citent leurs parents, qu'elles disent le mal qu'elles savent sur les voisins. Elles se soutiennent dans des situations à peine dites, même entre elles, des choses murmurées, des complicités J'avais une grande assiduité à les étudier. Ces conversations de révoltées et de résignées, j'y habitais pendant des après-midi entiers.»
C’est beau, poétique et ça nous est familier.
December 29, 2023
Comme l'a évoqué un précédent avis, j'ai du mal à garder en mémoire les textes diffus comme celui ci, qui s'apparente a des pages de notes coincées dans un téléphone. Non pas que le roman m'ait déplu, mais les sensations me sont aussi fugaces que les passages sont courts.
Dans un style peut être un peu trop travaille a mon gout l'auteur arrive a évoquer la ruralité, l'homosexualité et l'identité d'un jeune homosexuel ayant grandi dans la campagne nantaise. Le métissage, l'origine et la foi sont au cœur de l'écrit. J'ai une tendresse particulière pour quiconque arrive a parler de sa foi, c'est de l'ordre de l'intime bien plus qu'une quelconque sexualité.
Cette foi fluctuante, de laquelle on s'encombre par héritage et convenance, cette foi que l'on essaie d'apprivoiser, que l'on délaisse pour mieux s'y replonger. C'était très beau.
Comparer cet écrit a Édouard Louis est selon moi une erreur: jamais l'auteur ne méprise, ne dénonce ou tente d'expliquer. Il raconte, peut-être de façon égoïste, les différents mal êtres que tous nous avons pu ressentir à différents degrés.
Même si cela s'apparente un peu trop a un exercice de style par moments, un peu trop ancré dans une génération, je relirai Marouane Bakhti avec plaisir.
Dans un style peut être un peu trop travaille a mon gout l'auteur arrive a évoquer la ruralité, l'homosexualité et l'identité d'un jeune homosexuel ayant grandi dans la campagne nantaise. Le métissage, l'origine et la foi sont au cœur de l'écrit. J'ai une tendresse particulière pour quiconque arrive a parler de sa foi, c'est de l'ordre de l'intime bien plus qu'une quelconque sexualité.
Cette foi fluctuante, de laquelle on s'encombre par héritage et convenance, cette foi que l'on essaie d'apprivoiser, que l'on délaisse pour mieux s'y replonger. C'était très beau.
Comparer cet écrit a Édouard Louis est selon moi une erreur: jamais l'auteur ne méprise, ne dénonce ou tente d'expliquer. Il raconte, peut-être de façon égoïste, les différents mal êtres que tous nous avons pu ressentir à différents degrés.
Même si cela s'apparente un peu trop a un exercice de style par moments, un peu trop ancré dans une génération, je relirai Marouane Bakhti avec plaisir.
August 19, 2024
The publisher of the English translation that I read, Divided Publishing, describes its mission as "at large we publish authors who cannot balance or resolve their contradictions". And indeed, this author has not reconciled or resolved the novel's contradictions, although it may seem so at the end. What I mean is that there are clearly two halves to the novel: the first, which is written in a stronger, more lyrical, almost incantatory way; and the second, which pushes the narrative to its conclusion while losing the lyricism. I felt robbed by the promise of the first half, which is unfulfilled in the second, but it is still a strong piece about growing up out of balance, sideways or, if you like, queer, and trying to find one's footing in a world that is only seemingly welcoming but full of antagonisms and violence toward the Other.
April 24, 2023
Mon plus gros coup de cœur de l’année so far.
La plume est absolument incroyable, puissante, pulvérisante.
L’auteur crache ses émotions, déverse ses tristesses et partage ses idéaux avec une poésie à couper le souffle.
D’une beauté déchirante.
D’une maîtrise impeccable.
Le genre de bouquins qui nous donne envie de ralentir notre rythme de lecture mais dont les pages se tournent d’elles-mêmes sans qu’on s’en aperçoive.
Absolument sublime et inoubliable.
Un must-read !
La plume est absolument incroyable, puissante, pulvérisante.
L’auteur crache ses émotions, déverse ses tristesses et partage ses idéaux avec une poésie à couper le souffle.
D’une beauté déchirante.
D’une maîtrise impeccable.
Le genre de bouquins qui nous donne envie de ralentir notre rythme de lecture mais dont les pages se tournent d’elles-mêmes sans qu’on s’en aperçoive.
Absolument sublime et inoubliable.
Un must-read !
August 19, 2023
C'est doux et prenant, je ne m'attendais pas à ça mais c'est un beau coup de coeur
November 3, 2024
C'était beau, c'était puissant.
Read
August 4, 2025Shortlisted for the 2025 Republic of Consciousness Prize for Small Presses, UK & Ireland
*
I never knew what Mémé was afraid of.
One day, towards the end of the end, I put my headphones in her downy ears and turned on the music. And her face... Mémé had never heard such a thing before. The world was turning without her and that was fine by her. She never saw the sea, though it wasn't very far away.
I never knew Pépé. He used to hit things when rage took over his thoughts (same as me) and I know that he suffered from the war trapped inside his head, but that's about it.
I wonder if I care?
I wonder to what extent these memories of France, the real one, are a part of me.
I almost wrote: the France that lived in the fields, that lived before our century, that I see in textbook photos.
Pitchfork in hand, sitting on bales of hay. That was his life.
The France with icons above the bed. The France that's hidden in the twists and turns in the back of my mind, in the labyrinthine thoughts about my skin colour and my gwer accent that gives me away, that reveals I'm not all Arab. So yes, okay, Mémé is a part of me.
(15)
so very moving… most of it written in fragments of prose, with some sections containing longer paragraphs, but loved this story of transformation & identity & culture & more… this is Bakhti’s first novel & definitely will look forward to more!
_____
How to Leave the World (2024) is Lara Vergnaud's translation of Comment sortir du monde (2023) by
Marouane Bakhti.
from the judges:
"An urgent, bleakly funny, fragmentary account of displacement, queer desire, and finding a place in the world. Using a collage technique, Bakhti has produced an outstanding novel about identity and endurance."
the Press:
Divided is a publisher in Brussels and London. Not knowing is its unpower.
At large we publish authors who cannot balance or resolve their contradictions, who struggle to make peace in the industry or genre or category or world in which they end up. There is resistance to categories and commodification. The experimental form of the writing comes out of need. There is no self-preservation if you want change.
*
I never knew what Mémé was afraid of.
One day, towards the end of the end, I put my headphones in her downy ears and turned on the music. And her face... Mémé had never heard such a thing before. The world was turning without her and that was fine by her. She never saw the sea, though it wasn't very far away.
I never knew Pépé. He used to hit things when rage took over his thoughts (same as me) and I know that he suffered from the war trapped inside his head, but that's about it.
I wonder if I care?
I wonder to what extent these memories of France, the real one, are a part of me.
I almost wrote: the France that lived in the fields, that lived before our century, that I see in textbook photos.
Pitchfork in hand, sitting on bales of hay. That was his life.
The France with icons above the bed. The France that's hidden in the twists and turns in the back of my mind, in the labyrinthine thoughts about my skin colour and my gwer accent that gives me away, that reveals I'm not all Arab. So yes, okay, Mémé is a part of me.
(15)
so very moving… most of it written in fragments of prose, with some sections containing longer paragraphs, but loved this story of transformation & identity & culture & more… this is Bakhti’s first novel & definitely will look forward to more!
_____
How to Leave the World (2024) is Lara Vergnaud's translation of Comment sortir du monde (2023) by
Marouane Bakhti.
from the judges:
"An urgent, bleakly funny, fragmentary account of displacement, queer desire, and finding a place in the world. Using a collage technique, Bakhti has produced an outstanding novel about identity and endurance."
the Press:
Divided is a publisher in Brussels and London. Not knowing is its unpower.
At large we publish authors who cannot balance or resolve their contradictions, who struggle to make peace in the industry or genre or category or world in which they end up. There is resistance to categories and commodification. The experimental form of the writing comes out of need. There is no self-preservation if you want change.
June 6, 2025
Sinnlich erzählt der Protagonist von seiner Kindheit in der französischen Provinz, zwischen Tieren und Tierkadavern, von Bäumen baumelnd, frei und voller Glück.
Getrübt wird dieses kindliche Glück bald vom Mobbing durch andere Jungen. Der empathische Ich-Erzähler verheimlicht die erfahrene Gewalt, verheimlicht sein erwachendes schwules Begehren, vor allem vor seinem arabischstämmigen Vater.
Isoliert steht er zwischen den Welten: einerseits ist da die Verbindung zu seiner Heimat Frankreich durch die französische Mutter, andererseits nimmt er wie eine Satellitenschüssel die Gespräche seiner marokkanischen Verwandten um sich herum auf. Seine arabischen Sprachfähigkeiten werden geprüft und für nicht ausreichend befunden. Eines Tages ohrfeigt ihn sein Vater, als er ihn in einem Kleid erwischt.
Von da an steht er unter strenger Beobachtung, muss sich ständig selbst überwachen, erlebt Angst und Zwang. Der Sohn beginnt, die ihm entgegengebrachte Gewalt mit der Kultur des Vaters gleichzusetzen, Marokko zu hassen, die Heimat seines Vaters, die ihm „ekelhaft misogyn“ erscheint. Nun verbirgt der Protagonist seine Herkunft, der Garten seiner Eltern ist kein Zufluchtsort mehr. Mit dem Verlassen des Elternhauses und einer unverzeihlich erscheinenden Tat des Vaters ist die Entfremdung vollzogen.
Ausgesprochen nahbar und sprachlich fulminant thematisiert „Wie man aus der Welt verschwindet“ die Wut und Depression, die aus der Ablehnung und der Ignoranz gegenüber der Queerness eines Kindes erwachsen. Marouane Bakhti berichtet aber auch über die Möglichkeit einer Annäherung und über die Versöhnung mit der Ambivalenz der Migration.
Arabel Summent hat den Debütroman mitfühlend und elegant übersetzt.
CN: Tierleid, Queerfeindlichkeit, Mobbing, antimuslimischer Rassismus, Gewalt gegen LGBTQIA+-Personen, väterliche Gewalt, queerfeindliche und rassistische Beleidigungen, Depression, Suizidalität
Getrübt wird dieses kindliche Glück bald vom Mobbing durch andere Jungen. Der empathische Ich-Erzähler verheimlicht die erfahrene Gewalt, verheimlicht sein erwachendes schwules Begehren, vor allem vor seinem arabischstämmigen Vater.
Isoliert steht er zwischen den Welten: einerseits ist da die Verbindung zu seiner Heimat Frankreich durch die französische Mutter, andererseits nimmt er wie eine Satellitenschüssel die Gespräche seiner marokkanischen Verwandten um sich herum auf. Seine arabischen Sprachfähigkeiten werden geprüft und für nicht ausreichend befunden. Eines Tages ohrfeigt ihn sein Vater, als er ihn in einem Kleid erwischt.
Von da an steht er unter strenger Beobachtung, muss sich ständig selbst überwachen, erlebt Angst und Zwang. Der Sohn beginnt, die ihm entgegengebrachte Gewalt mit der Kultur des Vaters gleichzusetzen, Marokko zu hassen, die Heimat seines Vaters, die ihm „ekelhaft misogyn“ erscheint. Nun verbirgt der Protagonist seine Herkunft, der Garten seiner Eltern ist kein Zufluchtsort mehr. Mit dem Verlassen des Elternhauses und einer unverzeihlich erscheinenden Tat des Vaters ist die Entfremdung vollzogen.
Ausgesprochen nahbar und sprachlich fulminant thematisiert „Wie man aus der Welt verschwindet“ die Wut und Depression, die aus der Ablehnung und der Ignoranz gegenüber der Queerness eines Kindes erwachsen. Marouane Bakhti berichtet aber auch über die Möglichkeit einer Annäherung und über die Versöhnung mit der Ambivalenz der Migration.
Arabel Summent hat den Debütroman mitfühlend und elegant übersetzt.
CN: Tierleid, Queerfeindlichkeit, Mobbing, antimuslimischer Rassismus, Gewalt gegen LGBTQIA+-Personen, väterliche Gewalt, queerfeindliche und rassistische Beleidigungen, Depression, Suizidalität
December 18, 2024
‘Diaspora kids are so cringe’ says a friend. “But then there is that incredible faculty given us to step outside of our culture and take root elsewhere, otherwise, however we like. I tell myself that the diaspora is like a great flock of chimeras.”
I love the honesty and sincerity of Bakhti. It felt as if i was sitting in a storytelling evening, looking into his eyes and snapping my fingers every time there is joy, loneliness, togetherness, grief, play and everything that makes us human.
How to leave the world? I think the book is hinting towards this answer: by embracing it.
I love the honesty and sincerity of Bakhti. It felt as if i was sitting in a storytelling evening, looking into his eyes and snapping my fingers every time there is joy, loneliness, togetherness, grief, play and everything that makes us human.
How to leave the world? I think the book is hinting towards this answer: by embracing it.
September 15, 2025
Having been thinking about loss and grief a lot recently, as well as experiencing an extended depressive episode, it was a stroke of luck that I was assigned this for uni. Bakhti's writing reminded me that, even in depths I feel I can't possibly pull myself out of, healing comes when you work for it.
8/10
8/10
April 11, 2023
Poétique et très beau
February 26, 2025
Within that damp haze, I feel enormous apprehension about life in its entirety, the network of water veins it forms, all those streams and tributaries, all those obscure crossings. I see all my friends succeed or fail but with intention, they have a plan. And what I'm trying to express here is that my intention, my plan, is unliveable. I know from the start that there's nowhere to drag my tired body but there - the place to which I resigned myself even as a little boy.
Shortlisted for the 2025 Republic of Consciousness Prize for UK and Ireland Small Presses – set up in 2016 to “reward, celebrate and promote literary fiction (explicitly including translated fiction and short story collections) that mainstream publishing was not supporting - work that is innovative, creatively challenging, and a financial risk on behalf of the publisher.”
It is published by London (and Brussels) based Divided Publishing who “at large .. publish authors who cannot balance or resolve their contradictions, who struggle to make peace in the industry or genre or category or world in which they end up. There is resistance to categories and commodification. The experimental form of the writing comes out of need. There is no self-preservation if you want change.”
And that idea of being unable to balance or resolve contradictions … to struggle to make peace in the category or world in which they end up, is actually a perfect description here of the first party narrator (whose struggles are not disconnected from the author’s).
The book’s opening section “Under The Willow Trees” – written in the explicitly and deliberately fragmentary style that dominates the book – documents the narrator’s childhood and adolesence in the Loire-Atlantique countryside on the somewhat forgotten periphery of France, with a Moroccan father (whose parents and brothers have also moved to France) and a French mother (whose deceased parents – only the grandmother known to the narrator – were from peasant stock) – his Arab appearance but French accent mean he does not fit into particularly well into either camp, and his homosexuality in particular is seen as clashing with his paternal Muslim heritage (and even when he himself starts to find interest in Islam it is only to find out that his father is something of a “counterfeit Muslim” who has not taught him how to pray properly. Ultimately the narrator flees his home for Paris
The Bonfire – recounts how the narrator’s father discovered and burnt his explicit diaries.
Amid The Fog – takes place over the next few years in Paris, and although free from some of the constraints and pressures of his home, the narrator is still “othered” – for example by lovers he hooks up with or even a psychologist he visits – both of them defining him by his “Arab” ness.
Two of the concluding sections “The Death of Jeddi” and then an unnamed one – begin with him being summoned back to the death beds of his paternal grandparents (first his grandfather and then grandmother) in both cases ending up returning to Morocco for their funeral and gaining new insights into his origins and some of what has driven his father’s attitudes and behaviour.
As the narrator has said in an interview (translation courtesy of Google) exploring perhaps the crucial theme of the novel
If his father is uprooted, my character is non-rooted. He grew up in a family where there is a permanent account of exile. Very quickly, this metaphor of the plant that we uproot and try to replant elsewhere is born in his head because that's how his father lives the idea of integration and that he transmits it to his son. This idea that we can be replanted elsewhere brutally, without regard for the rest of his crop that he must lose.
I was also interested in (again in French) interview where the author rejects the idea that his book is about the intolerance of religion to homosexuality (an idea initially held by his character) – but due to his father’s own prejudice, closed-mindedness and choice to adopt a homophobic form of masculinity – as he points out the father has married a non-Muslim, so could have taken his tolerance a stage further.
Overall the book is interesting in concept – but was not one I really particularly enjoyed or felt stood out or see as a strong contender even for the prize shortlist.
I did not feel that the text flowed – less in its deliberate fragmentary approach but within the fragments. One example that I marked was the following passage – which in only three lines seems to not just mix metaphors but add a few cliches.
.. without a key to open the new door before me. Yes, that's exactly it - a vast fertile desert.
I know how to lie and burn bridges, clearly. Isolate parts of my history and keep them quiet. Don't let anyone know about them, the better to form a new mirage.
And the novel’s basic themes seem ones that are very common (If anything over-represented) in current big-press literary fiction; and a translation of a French author who is gaining acclaim there is more of a publishing coup than an out-there risky publishing gamble.
March 17, 2025
Constantly asked to categorise himself - French? Moroccan? Gay? Muslim? - Bakhti has written a book in response…
I enjoyed this one, but must admit that although I only read it a few weeks ago, it has not proved particularly memorable. It’s filled with pithy, self-aware, snapshot observations but they are not quite tied together into a greater whole with staying power.
I love a story of messy identities that don’t perfectly fit into boxes, and it was interesting to read how the narrator navigated his relationship to his two cultures and how that changed over time - it’s a story of finding one’s place in the world (on multiple levels) and the expectations, shame, forgiveness and familial love that are part of that journey. I especially appreciated the perspective of growing up as a kid of the Moroccan diaspora in rural France (as opposed to the more frequently explored urban experience).
A sharp, jaunty story of complex identity, familial and societal expectations, self-acceptance, and forgiveness.
I enjoyed this one, but must admit that although I only read it a few weeks ago, it has not proved particularly memorable. It’s filled with pithy, self-aware, snapshot observations but they are not quite tied together into a greater whole with staying power.
I love a story of messy identities that don’t perfectly fit into boxes, and it was interesting to read how the narrator navigated his relationship to his two cultures and how that changed over time - it’s a story of finding one’s place in the world (on multiple levels) and the expectations, shame, forgiveness and familial love that are part of that journey. I especially appreciated the perspective of growing up as a kid of the Moroccan diaspora in rural France (as opposed to the more frequently explored urban experience).
A sharp, jaunty story of complex identity, familial and societal expectations, self-acceptance, and forgiveness.
January 11, 2025
A rare book indeed, and the first one I’ve annotated in a long time. Translated from French by Lara Vergnaud.
The author writes about growing up as a diaspora kid in rural France, struggling to reconcile with his identities: queer, Muslim, French, Moroccan. The book opens with the line, “Lust in my heart, I wanted to leave at any cost.” He leaves the countryside, but does not feel totally liberated in the city. He writes of feeling fundamentally alien, a long-simmering rage within him that he describes as genetic, as inherited, and asking himself how he can leave the world. I revere the gentleness with which he speaks of memory, his desire to remember, the softness that remains upon loving the world in lieu of leaving it.
My favorite thing is when stories lead me back to Chen Chen’s words from a few years ago that have stuck with with me til now, the words I have written on a large poster taped to my bedroom ceiling: let me stay tender-hearted, despite, despite, despite.
The author writes about growing up as a diaspora kid in rural France, struggling to reconcile with his identities: queer, Muslim, French, Moroccan. The book opens with the line, “Lust in my heart, I wanted to leave at any cost.” He leaves the countryside, but does not feel totally liberated in the city. He writes of feeling fundamentally alien, a long-simmering rage within him that he describes as genetic, as inherited, and asking himself how he can leave the world. I revere the gentleness with which he speaks of memory, his desire to remember, the softness that remains upon loving the world in lieu of leaving it.
My favorite thing is when stories lead me back to Chen Chen’s words from a few years ago that have stuck with with me til now, the words I have written on a large poster taped to my bedroom ceiling: let me stay tender-hearted, despite, despite, despite.
July 20, 2025
Un petit livre acheté initialement pour son titre que je trouve très beau et puis j’ai beaucoup aimé cette lecture.
Le narrateur nous parle de sa vie, de son histoire, de son intériorité, pourtant nous ne savons pas où il vit, ni même son prénom. Est-ce un récit fictionnel ou autobiographique ? Peu importe, finalement.
Le narrateur nous plonge dans son inconfort de vivre, il ne semble être à sa place nulle part, pas même dans son propre corps. Le narrateur creusera alors ses racines, remontant jusqu’à ses ancêtres où se tisse son métissage.
L’errance du personnage s’accorde à l’écriture magnifique de l’auteur qui ne se veut pas conventionnelle.
Le récit n’est pas vraiment clair, une sorte de brouillard plane sur lui, mais cela n’enlève rien à la qualité de ce texte à la plume poétique, puissante et sensible à la fois. Ce brouillard donne aussi un aspect universel à ce roman qui aborde des thématiques comme la famille, les origines, le regard d’autrui et l’acceptation de soi.
Le narrateur nous parle de sa vie, de son histoire, de son intériorité, pourtant nous ne savons pas où il vit, ni même son prénom. Est-ce un récit fictionnel ou autobiographique ? Peu importe, finalement.
Le narrateur nous plonge dans son inconfort de vivre, il ne semble être à sa place nulle part, pas même dans son propre corps. Le narrateur creusera alors ses racines, remontant jusqu’à ses ancêtres où se tisse son métissage.
L’errance du personnage s’accorde à l’écriture magnifique de l’auteur qui ne se veut pas conventionnelle.
Le récit n’est pas vraiment clair, une sorte de brouillard plane sur lui, mais cela n’enlève rien à la qualité de ce texte à la plume poétique, puissante et sensible à la fois. Ce brouillard donne aussi un aspect universel à ce roman qui aborde des thématiques comme la famille, les origines, le regard d’autrui et l’acceptation de soi.
January 24, 2025
"I say anxiety, but it's actually my memory trembling and yielding, it liberates the past, all of it, inside my body. The sensations are from the years I spent at the back of the garden inhaling the smell of oak. This feeling was already clawing at me, part of my daily life, when I was seven, maybe eight. When it comes, I cant do anything but replay memories and latent fears in my mind."
"And yet beast always beats brain in an overwhelming victory."
"And yet beast always beats brain in an overwhelming victory."
February 7, 2025
Tres bien écrit, tout en étant accessible, de la douce violence. On reste un petit peu sur sa faim en matière de relations intra familiales, qui sont abordées tout au long du livre mais justement il creuse le psyché sans pour autant aller jusqu’au bout de la démarche, je me questionne sur sa relation avec son frère et sa sœur qui sont très peu évoqués. C’est véritablement un livre sur le courage d’être soi mais le courage de pardonner aussi
August 13, 2025
Poetic prose exploring what it means to have an identity that other people attempt to define and see as separate parts - what does this mean for a whole human being? Queer, French, Arab, Muslim, Moroccan, son, grandson and lover divide and integrate through the course of this book of searing vulnerability and deep wondering.
September 22, 2025
Very familiar, to me as a queer migrant from Eastern Europe, who often wants to leave this world. Very Annie Ernaux — whom I really like, too. Just more poetic /lyrical, less scientific. Hers is a scientists excavation, auto-ethnography, his is a washing of lost objects of innocence in grief, anger & some hope.
July 21, 2023
Abandonné au bout de 90 pages, je me suis forcée au vu des critiques dithyrambiques, mais je m'ennuie et je n'accroche pas du tout au style, très découpé et poétique mais surtout complètement décousu. J'ai été attirée par les commentaires qui faisaient le lien avec Fatima Daas, Annie Ernaux ou Édouard Louis, mais je n'ai rien trouvé de tout ça dans ce texte.
May 23, 2023
formidable premier roman (autobiographique ?) j'ai adoré le style tres poétique
September 17, 2023
Poétique, introspectif et très intime, ce premier roman tombe par moment dans certains clichés de l'adolescent tourmenté dans sa propre angoisse en rupture avec le reste du monde sans vrai recul ou de perspective critique, mais il en demeure une belle lecture et une analyse pertinente sur l'identité, la famille, la sexualité et la religion.
November 23, 2023
Un livre à la fois poétique, triste et drôle, tendre et dur... Le récit d'un être qui cherche qui il est. Une très belle découverte !
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