A review by madtraveler
A Country for Dying by Abdellah Taïa

2.0

It was OK. Assuming this is the writer's style and not an effect of language or translation, this story is choppy and makes it hard to find a reading rhythm. The plot is disjointed, what there is of it, and many passages read like emotional rants and outbursts which sadly didn't transfer such emotional impact a reader should experience. These are tragic, raw, emotional stories yet somehow the writing fails to bring that across for me. Others clearly connected here but I wonder if that was a personal matter. Good writing should bring the outsider inside imho. The last chapter's conversation was perhaps the finest part of the book, but too late to bring me in. This is all just personal reaction; I don't knock the amount of work that went into this, and certainly a good number of readers loved this.