Join us

Facebook
Twitter
Instagram
Newsletter
Cover: Guapa - Saleem Haddad

Saleem Haddad

Guapa

2019, pp. 368, Paperback
ISBN: 9781787702059
Region: Lebanon
Book collection: Europa B-formats
Available as ebook Available as ebook Available as ebook
£ 8.99

The book

A novel of the Arab Spring

Winner of the Polari First Book Prize 2017

A Middle-Eastern capital caught in the revolutionary wave of the Arab Spring. A day in the life of a young man disillusioned with both East and West and struggling to find a place for himself in a society ruled by hypocrisy and contradictions. Rasa works as an interpreter for Western journalists by day and divides his nights between the Guapa, an underground nightclub where the city’s clandestine LGBT community congregates, and his secret lover Taymour. Every night Taymour sneaks into the house Rasa shares with his overbearing grandmother, the woman who raised him. When she finds them in bed together on the eve of Taymour’s wedding day, all hell breaks loose. That same day Rasa learns his best friend, the famous drag queen Majid, has been arrested by the police. Unable to go home, afraid for Majid’s fate, and heartbroken by Taymour’s determination to keep living a double life, Rasa’s fragile balance collapses, while all around him the brief, intense season of public protest is cut short by the regime’s repression and the rapid rise of the hard-line Islamist movement.

Wry and aching, irresistibly funny at times, Guapa heralds the arrival of a strong new voice from the Arabic world.

“Freewheeling and incendiary.”
London Review of Books

Guapa offers an intimate, complex portrait of gay life in the Arab world, a subject rarely explored in fiction.”
Gay Times

“This immensely readable novel is fluent, passionate and emotionally honest. Equally astute in its analysis of Arab and American mores, the book’s characters are nuanced and dynamic; it gives fresh life to the maxim 'the personal is political'.”
The Guardian

“…vibrant, wrenching début novel...sensuous and caustic, full of smoke and blood.”
The New Yorker

“Family, identity, and politics collide in Haddad’s debut . . . The topic of gay life in the Arab world is richly complex, and Haddad’s cinematic, evocative prose rises to meet the sensitive subject matter.”
Publisher’s Weekly

“A remarkable debut.”
The Huffington Post

Guapa sets Haddad up as a literary voice capable of narrating untold stories of the modern gay experience, from one of the most complicated parts of the world.”
Attitude Magazine

The author

Saleem Haddad
Saleem Haddad was born in Kuwait City in 1983 to a Lebanese-Palestinian father and an Iraqi-German mother, and educated in Jordan, Canada, and the United Kingdom. He has worked as an aid worker with Médecins Sans Frontières in Yemen, Syria, and Iraq, and currently lives in London, where he advises on inclusion of refugees, women, and young people in the transition and peace processes of the Arab Spring.
http://www.saleemhaddad.com/
@sysh

Reviews

More suggestions

  • Cover: Y/N - Esther Yi

    Esther Yi

    Y/N

    2024, pp. 196, £ 9.99
    A novel about obsessive fandom and literary self-destruction.
  • Cover: The House of Gazes - Daniele Mencarelli

    Daniele Mencarelli

    The House of Gazes

    2024, pp. 224, £ 14.99
    A powerful coming-of-age story about loss, identity, and rebirth.
  • Cover: Fathers and Fugitives - S J Naudé

    S J Naudé

    Fathers and Fugitives

    2024, pp. 192, £ 14.99
    An inventive and emotionally charged novel about fatherhood and family, loyalty and betrayal, inheritance and belonging.
  • Cover: The Mortal and Immortal Life of the Girl from Milan - Domenico Starnone

    Domenico Starnone

    The Mortal and Immortal Life of the Girl from Milan

    2024, pp. 144, £ 14.99
    An enchanting story, in the unique voice of one of Italy’s greatest contemporary writers.
  • Cover: Luda - Grant Morrison

    Grant Morrison

    Luda

    2024, pp. 464, £ 10.99
    A drag queen becomes obsessed with her mysterious young rival who might be an occultist, or a murderer… or the greatest star of all.
  • Cover: The Silence of the Choir - Mohamed Mbougar Sarr

    Mohamed Mbougar Sarr

    The Silence of the Choir

    2024, pp. 368, £ 14.99
    A polyphonic tale of immigration and community by the winner of the 2021 Prix Goncourt