Endless Fall A Little Chronicle

In this poignant account of a classmate’s suicide, the acclaimed Moroccan author gives both a biting critique of small-town bigotry in the 1960s and a moving tribute to the fleeting beauty of adolescence.

In Settat in the 1960s, when it was still a tiny village, a young man leapt to his death in front of his stunned class and their teacher, left holding a brief, devastating suicide note. Among the students was Mohamed Leftah. Haunted by the uncommon grace of that desperate act, and the tragic image of his body lying in the courtyard, Leftah penned this chronicle of life at the time, marked by repressed desire and shame.

A fiery yet thoughtful meditation on taboo acts—homosexuality, adultery, suicide—and the hypocrisy and cruelty often found in those who judge them, Endless Fall also offers a fascinating window into the mind of the seminal writer.

Mohamed Leftah was a writer and journalist born in Settat, Morocco, in 1946. He attended engineering school in Paris and then returned in 1972 to Morocco, where he became a literary critic for Le Matin du Sahara and Le Temps du Maroc. His novels include the critically acclaimed Demoiselles of Numidia (Other Press, 2023) and Captain Ni’mat’s Last Battle (Other Press, 2022). He died of cancer in 2008.

Eleni Sikelianos is a poet, writer, and Professor of Literary Arts at Brown University. Her work has been widely fêted, translated, and anthologized, garnering numerous honors. Her books include Your Kingdom, Make Yourself Happy, and The Book of Jon. For more information, please visit her website, elenisikelianos.com.