Moroccan-Born Author Tackles Immigration and Identity in New Novel

In this work, El Maimouni, a social worker for minors in Barcelona, paints the different realities related to immigration, identity, and social integration. "The children, future migrants in Europe..., [...] are treated as human waste. A scourge for a country that feeds on tourism and tries to hide the shameful image of child poverty," we can read in the book.

The author recounts the progress of the investigation opened after the murder of Rihanna, a young transgender woman who fled Morocco and will be tortured to death in the Catalan capital. "She was born in the wrong body, in the wrong place and at the wrong time," he points out in the work. "At the Cervantes Institute in Tangier, they have already told me that they will have the book but will not be able to exhibit it. Sex is a very taboo subject," he adds.

"Nadie salva a las rosas" is a condensed social denunciation and claim in the streets of a Barcelona less welcoming than it appears. "It’s my city and I love it, but it’s very difficult if you’re not from the middle class," explains El Maimouni. Born in Ksar el Kebir, the author arrived in Coma-Ruga at the age of 15 days. His parents had been living there since 1970.

"I feel Catalan. I arrived here when I was two weeks old, so it’s society that has to start accepting that foreign names are also Catalan. It’s obvious to me," says El Maimouni, who is presented in Morocco "as a Spanish-speaking Moroccan author. When you’re important, you’re Moroccan, otherwise, no," the author bluntly states.