recommend Arab books that deal with the experiences of queerness, or Arab books that deal with topics about culture, religion, traditions, grief, war, and any book that explains how they deal with these experiences or their opinions/ feelings about them.
by wenriuz
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I’m not sure how serious a book you’re looking for (or whether you’re even looking for fiction or something more objective), but for a really sweet and soulful and far-deeper-than-the-average-YA mlm read with a fair bit of focus on family/mental health/cultural identity etc I’d suggest Darius the Great Is Not Okay by Adib Khorram!
Not queer, but a beautifully tragic book about war and grief, Frankenstein in Baghdad by Ahmed Saadawi. Also The Corpse Exhibition by Hassan Blasim for a short story collection with similar themes.
Haven’t read it yet, but The Coin by Yasmin Zaher seems to be about a queer Palestinian woman.
Not Arab, but Persian, Martyr! by Kaveh Akbar follows a queer Iranian-American man trying to find meaning after his parents’ deaths.
I have read the following
Woman at Point Zero by Nawal El Saadawi (if I remember correctly gyptian woman in prison for I believe killing her abuser)
As long as the lemon trees grow- Zoulfa Katouh (about Syrian civil war).
A Woman is No Man by Etaf Rum (palastinian girl married someone in US and gets kinda domestic abuse there)
Land of No Regrets by Sadi Muktadir (four boys in Ontario Canada, put in Islamic school and I believe one of them or two turn out gay but can’t remember. It’s been a while)
The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran(poetry)
I just have to say many of these carry lots of “propaganda” type of stories. Being Arab and living in the west. I find all these are outliers as stories but normal people stories don’t make books lool
Guapa by Saleem Haddad, Against the Loveless World by Susan Abulhawa, The Arsonists City by Hala Alyan
A Map of Home by Randa Jarrar
Hala Alyan is my favorite, The Arsonists City or Salt Houses, she’s Palestinian American
There’s also a great book by Palestinian writer Adania Shibli called Minor Detail that is stunning, very much about war, occupation and memory
Neither are about queerness but I seem to remember Good Girl by Aria Aber having some queer themes and Martyr! by Kaveh Akbar – I think they may be American writers of Arab heritage. Both deal with culture, grief, identity and survival