#bookstagram – the shiny diaries

A Guardian and a Thief

Some books are so bad that there can be no redemption for them. That’s precisely how Megha Majumdar’s A Guardian and a Thief appears to be. Since it came with great appreciation from none other than Oprah and was even her book club’s pick, also having been shortlisted for the National Book Awards, it made me wonder what exactly made this book a “shining jewel”, particularly in the eyes of an American readership. To put it bluntly, this book has been written by an NRI for a Western, specifically American, audience. It ticks every box when it comes to caricaturing and stereotyping Indians through a familiar western gaze. What is especially astonishing is that despite having lived in India for nineteen years, Majumdar still chooses to pander to this gaze by reproducing a shoddy and pathetic poverty porn. This raises a larger and more troubling question: what should be said about the literary genius of someone like Oprah when they champion a book like this which exemplifies lazy writing highlighting all the tropes, has a flimsy storyline and actively perpetuates stereotypes. Shouldn’t Oprah have known better?

The story is set in a climate-stricken Kolkata of the future where poverty, famine and scarcity form the backdrop of an anarchic society. The billionaires continue to profit obscenely making billions out of the misery of the poor while hoarding resources. There’s the protagonist, Ma, who is desperate to migrate to America with her father and her two-year-old daughter, Mishti, to reunite with her husband. Battling the everyday challenges of extreme heat and hunger, she does secure the visas for their journey. However, fate has other plans when a thief steals her bag containing their passports, leaving Ma helpless and hopeless, just days before their scheduled flight.

What follows is so tedious, disjointed, and incoherent that one loses track of the entire story. Calamity after calamity befalls Ma, but her otherworldly, almost supernatural stoicism feels performative and implausible. The city of Kolkata experiencing the effects of the climate crisis that Megha has tried to depict, is reduced to cursory descriptions of poverty, emotional apathy and belligerence amongst its inhabitants without allowing for nuance, insight, or interpretation. It feels as though the author has simply taken the tropes of a ‘third world country’ and transplanted them into a speculative future, where little has changed, an exercise that caters neatly to a voyeuristic western imagination.

More than being disappointed, I am angry. Ma is singularly the most frustrating character I have encountered in recent literature. Not merely one-dimensional, she is also burdened by an unnecessary, almost theatrical resilience and pretence. She seems to be the living embodiment of somebody who is deliberately delusional. Mishti, her daughter, emerges as one of the most irritating child characters I have ever read and I bemoan the author’s craft in making me dislike even a toddler.

The book leaves me with a host of unanswered questions. What was the author trying to convey with the supposedly shocking climax? What traumas has Ma endured that explain her behaviour and why is there little to no mention of the same? Does the text hint at child abuse, and if so, why is it merely gestured at and abandoned? Why is the narrative energy spent building empathy for the thief while Ma, the ostensible victim, remains alienating and opaque? Lastly, why did Majumdar write this book at all? If the aim was only to appease an American audience, then it’s worked brilliantly.

This brings me back to those who have praised the book, Oprah included. Where does the responsibility of the reader lie when a book such as this gets promoted as one of the “best books of the year”? For Oprah did this book tick the ‘diversity reads’ box and hence the appropriation of India and Indians by a diaspora author was never examined or interrogated? Should diaspora authors get away with such misrepresentation simply because they are Indian by origin, even though their work is divorced from the lived realities it claims to portray and their writing is nothing but a patronising paean?

I have said this before and I will say it again, diaspora Indian authors should write about their diaspora clan. Everything else risks becoming appropriation. To imagine an India steeped in suffering and mythological misery, written for western consumption and for pacifying one’s misplaced patriotism, serves neither literature nor truth.

It genuinely pains me to criticise my forever idol, Oprah for choosing Megha Majumdar’s A Guardian and a Thief. Oprah will continue to remain my idol, but at times it’s imperative we question our idols too for their choices. If not, we become equally complicit.

Postscript: I am aware that this review may be misconstrued as misogynistic and dismissed for mansplaining, because I, as a cis-presenting queer man is criticising two women, but I still stand by my review nonetheless. After all, this critical thinking is also inspired by Oprah and her penchant for speaking truth to power.

~ JUST A GAY BOY. 🫣😠

Juveniles & Other Stories

📍 Thailand 🇹🇭

Juveniles & Other Stories is an anthology of short stories centered on queer narratives and queer characters. While the pieces may appear to be coming-of-age stories at first glance, a deeper reading reveals a tapestry of complex human emotions, rendered with remarkable empathy and compassion.

Nearly half of the book comprises the titular novella “Juveniles”. This is a story about two young boys Hai Saeng and Dao Nhue and their journey through adolescence. Dao Nhue gets enamoured with the mysterious Hai Saeng, who comes from a wealthy and privileged background. Hai Saeng seems to visit Dao Nhue’s village only during the summers and is never seen with his parents. His brooding and detached personality arouses Dao Nhue’s curiosity, and as they begin spending time together, he realises the dark secrets hiding behind the facade of congeniality. The innocent friendship blossoms into love and both of them find themselves in an inseparable dynamic of longing. However, Hai Saeng’s past looms large preventing him from embracing happiness or accepting love. The simmering anger, frustration and a sense of abandonment pushes him toward self sabotage and makes him lash out at times. The story builds toward a pivotal moment when Hai Saeng is forced to confront his worst fear leading to untoward repercussions that irrevocably alter the trajectory of both boys’ lives. Though the story is told through two young adults, it deals with adult issues of violence, neglect and emotional repression and how unchecked wounds can harden into self contempt, unworthiness and indifference. Hai Saeng’s attempt to walk through life unperturbed whilst bottling up rage and resentment only transforms him into a vehicle of pain. Ultimately, the boys do navigate their emotional burdens in flawed, confused, and profoundly human ways, thus offering an understated but resonant life lesson.

Amongst the accompanying stories, the one that caught my attention was, “Hirun and Beardy”. Again, this is about two men and the unspoken love between them. The fact that neither of them address a misunderstanding that occurred years ago, allowing it to fester and create a rift, says a lot about how adults choose to act immature and give in to their ego and false assumptions. Eventually it takes their perceptive nephew to bridge the gap and remind them of the unmistakable bond that has always existed between them.

Apinuch Petcharapiracht, the author, (also known under the pen name ‘Moonscape’) is a Chinese-Thai writer based in Phetchaburi, Thailand, and who dreams of marrying her girlfriend. Her stories in the book repeatedly explore unrequited love, silent longing and suppressed desire. Themes of grief, loss and loneliness echo throughout the collection. Through Juveniles & Other Stories, which has been translated from Thai by Kornhirun Nikornsaen, Apinuch has demonstrated how queer individuals experience the same vast spectrum of human emotions like anybody else. Sometimes the simplest stories leave the deepest impressions and Apinuch’s collection is a testament to that truth.

~ JUST A GAY BOY. 🏳️‍🌈🌈

Vera Wong’s Guide to Snooping (on a Dead Man)

The bold and irrepressible Vera Wong is back! For her second outing as a murder investigator, she no longer considers herself an amateur sleuth. After her successful first case, she proudly thinks of herself as a professional and hence believes that the relentless and reckless snooping is mandatory and an obvious part of the investigatory process.

The story begins when Vera spots a distraught Millie outside the police station where Vera herself had been to report an internet scam. She comforts Millie as a Chinese mother would do, brings her to ‘Vera Wang’s World-Famous Teahouse’, and soon learns about her missing friend Thomas. Around the same time, while snooping through her son Tilly’s apartment, she discovers his police officer girlfriend Selena’s private files. There she notices photos of a man, resembling Thomas, but labelled as John Doe, and a suicide victim. Snooping through social media, Vera stumbles upon photos of a social media sensation Xander Lin, who looks eerily similar to Thomas. All of this makes Vera suspicious and convinced to investigate the curious case of Thomas/Xander Lin/John Doe who according to her, has been murdered.

Vera’s snooping leads her to a plethora of interesting characters connected to Xander. Aimes, a rising social media star, and girlfriend of Xander, seems evasive about their relationship, and oddly detached about his death. TJ, his manager, remains guarded about their professional ties. Vera also learns that Xander has a grandfather, who turns out to be a friend she has known for a while and now feels indignant that he kept this a secret from her, which also makes her wonder, his reasons for doing so. As Vera gets pulled into the fray, she realises that Xander had wanted to come clean about each of these relationships in front of the world, only for him to be wound up dead, before he could do so.

The book, just like its predecessor (Vera Wong’s Unsolicited Advice for Murderers), is a taut, fast-paced thriller that keeps the tension crackling right through to the end. The climax was unexpected and nothing like what I had anticipated. All of the characters from the previous book make an appearance in this and it feels like a natural progression. The new characters turn out to be unique, multidimensional and mysterious. Beyond Vera, the standout for me was Robin, whose spunk and chutzpah matches perfectly with that of Vera’s. And finally, Vera Wong herself is a character like no other, who is determined on shattering all your preconceived notions about what a sixty-year-old woman can and should do. If you thought she was over the top in her first outing, then she has only pushed things to the next level with this one. She’s a mesmerising, witty, unfiltered Chinese mother who brews delicious teas, casually solves a murder, eases the stresses and anxieties of those around her and never stops being fabulously fearless.

Through this book, the author, Jesse Sutanto, has given us a grim insight into the glamorous world of social media superstars and the perils of this fickle, frivolous stardom. Xander, Aimes and TJ embody a generation living on social media and believing curated realities to be legitimate. This intersection and intermingling of real and performative blurs the true lived experience that soon transcends into emotional chaos and fractured identities causing a general disbelief in the collective humanity. The book is also a sharp commentary on the current epidemic of instant fame synonymous with an insatiable hunger for likes and followers that’s distorting one’s perception of success and failure.

The Vera Wong series retains its brand of being an enjoyable and engaging read effortlessly blending humour and homicide. Jesse Sutanto has created an unconventional heroine who is breaking stereotypes with her quirks and curiosity. The only lingering question I have is, what delightfully outrageous case will Vera tackle next?

~ JUST A GAY BOY. 😀☕️

QDA – A Queer Disability Anthology

July is Disability Pride Month and it was born out of the ‘Disability Rights Movement’ in America. It is built on intersectional identity politics and social justice. The core concept of Disability Pride is based on the tenet of rewriting the negative narratives and biases that frequently surround the concept of disability.

QDA isn’t just another anthology, rather it stands out for its thoughtful and considerate approach to queer disability. Each of the 48 writers/contributors is queer and disabled. The writers are diverse in terms of their race, gender, sexuality, identity and disability type which includes physical disability, sensory disability, neurodivergence, psychiatric disability, chronic illness and even invisible disability. The book also is an amalgamation of different literary forms such as essays, short fiction, poems, comics and hybrid writing.

QDA asserts itself as a commanding voice against ableism, dismantling the various ways in which it stigmatises and sidelines disabled people. The writings unapologetically express the anger and frustration felt by the writers and at the same time, they do not read as pleas for pity or assistance. The narratives are focussed on representation and resistance, where intersectionality isn’t just glossy platitude but a lived reality. The contributors have not flinched from exploring topics of sexuality, intimacy, eroticism and body politics. Out of the many writings, the ones that stood out to me were as follows.

No more Inspiration Porn: Introduction by Raymond Luczak rightfully introduces us to the necessity of a shame-free approach to disability, the blatant normalisation of ableism and the necessary nuance needed while discussing and implementing diversity. He makes a strong case against using disability as “inspiration porn” to fuel ableist goals.
Liv Mammone’s Advice to the Able-Bodied Poet entering a Disability Poetics Workshop, is a searing and scathing critique on the default ableist behaviours. It is a catalogue of reminders for engaging with a disabled person including checking one’s own misplaced courtesy and concern. A notable quote from the essay was, “The words disability, disorder, and disease aren’t synonymous”.
Kit Mead in Missing What You Never Had: Autistic and Queer, speaks for the autistic and queer who tend to become the invisible queers, as most queer spaces being too loud, prohibit many in the community from seeking them out and hence many of them feel their queerness to be fake as they are unable to assimilate with something that is a part of the cultural zeitgeist.
In Love Me, Love My Ostomy, Tak Hallus speaks about his struggles with Ulcerative Colitis and living with an ostomy; confronting the rejection he faces from within the gay community because his disability is not pretty, popular, obvious, and conventionally palatable.
Maverick Smith in Invisible Within the Ten Percent, laments the normalisation of ableism and audism, even in Pride celebrations.
In The Ides of April, Barbara Ruth takes us through her everyday life as a disabled person while also living with her disabled partner, Nora. In the aftermath of a terrorist attack on the Boston Marathon, her attendant Aisha fears for her racial profiling and Barbara wonders if she has become a quintessential clicktivist.
In Learning to Fall in Love, Katharina Love, decides to fall in love with herself first and accept her condition of Möbius Syndrome, her love for women and make peace with the fact that her mother’s love may always remain unattainable.

And finally, the crown jewel of this anthology for me, was the brilliant, satirical piece by Lydia Brown called, How Not to Plan Disability Conferences (or, How to Be an Ableist Asswipe While Planning a Disability Conference). Lydia meticulously enumerates the ways in which ableist people use disability to virtue signal diversity to an ableist audience essentially and how ableism takes centre stage and disability and disabled individuals remain mere props for motivational tokenism and triumph voyeurism. This short essay is biting, belligerent and bold and it should make everyone scrutinise their own diversity agendas.

Raymond Luczak, the editor of QDA, is a prolific Deaf gay writer, editor, poet, and filmmaker whose work often explores Deaf culture, disability, queerness, and identity. He has written/edited over 30 books, spanning poetry, fiction, memoir, anthologies, and plays. QDA reads like an act of defiance. It’s an anthem against the erasure of disability. It’s provocative and rambunctious; necessarily caustic yet relentlessly truthful, indulgent yet raw, but always delightfully queer.

~ JUST A GAY BOY.

Disappoint Me

When Max, a thirty something trans woman wakes up in the hospital after falling down a flight of stairs at a New Year’s party, she decides to take charge of her life. She has split from her boyfriend, Arthur, and the modern dating scene in London makes her anxious, where every swipe feels like a psychological landmine. Nonetheless she decides to sample its myriad offerings by deciding to go on a date with Vincent. His Asian background reassures her a bit and she soon also realises that he is thoughtful, kind and caring. As they embark upon this journey together, Max understands the love Vincent harbours for her and his earnest commitment towards being in a relationship with a trans woman. He is considerate with his words and language and ready to accept his misgivings. However, he is hesitant about telling his conservative Chinese parents about Max. This irks Max and despite her best attempts at trying not to dwell on it, subconsciously it keeps gnawing at her. An innocuous thing soon becomes a bone of contention and every banter and argument starts to carry its essence implicitly. If that were not enough, and add to it current dating culture’s panic and emotional pandemonium, there’s a troubled past that Vincent harbours in secret, which is bound to disrupt his relationship with Max once she finds out.

Disappoint Me is a meticulously clever and nuanced take on contemporary relationships and partnerships. Max and Vincent embody the quintessential emotionally dysregulated millennials as they navigate a relatively new and fragile relationship. Max is secure in her trans personhood but now, after being pair-bonded with Vincent she starts questioning everything about it, from its integrity to its malleability with a straight partner. Vincent on the other hand, seems to be unsure of his wholehearted attempts at traversing this queer relationship and is constantly wondering if he’s failing Max. Both Max and Vincent seem to be holding back their true selves during much of their communication for the irrational fear they feel in revealing their real personalities. Vincent straddles the romantic pressures of being the partner who is expected to introduce Max to his family, and the parental pressures of being the ideal son who will give his parents, their grandchildren. Max’s tryst with the complex emotions of self sabotage prevents her from being fully transparent with her feelings, instead, it leads to misunderstanding and misinterpretation. As she is settling into the ennui of having a new boyfriend post the breakup, doubts, revelations and reservations take her back into a state of restlessness and a previous, familiar world of disappointment.

While Max and Vincent come across as scattered, confused and a tad obsequious; some of the supporting characters bring the humour and spontaneity to the mundanity of a bougie existence in London. Max’s friend, Simone, is pragmatic about dealing with everyday situations but punishing when dealing with race and gender politics. The duality and dubiety of her personality comes forth when she gets accused of body shaming and unprofessional conduct. The standout character for me was Alex, whose unfading presence in the book heightens the narrative. She is assiduous and prudent about her decisions. Her quiet fortitude and restraint speak volumes in contrast to the emotional volatility around her. The author’s portrayal of most of her characters as sanctimonious, impetuous and solipsistic feels deliberate and conforming to the evolution of romance, camaraderie and cultural mores.

Nicola Dinan, is a British-Malaysian novelist and essayist who has swiftly become a celebrated voice in contemporary literary fiction. Her debut novel, Bellies won the Polari First Book Prize and was a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award. Nicola’s writing is witty, perceptive, conspicuous, incisive and complex. She meanders and ruminates on the real life trans experience through Max’s character, hence presenting her as layered, multidimensional and deeply human. That’s the beauty and purpose of Dinan’s language which presents people with flaws, insecurities and imperfections, and yet who are committed to living and loving. Her prose doesn’t cater to the gaze of cisnormative audiences; it gives trans women the room to be everything: angry, confused, loved, lonely and free. Her writing feels untethered, grounded in emotional realism and disinterested in perfection. Queer relationships and trans representation are the necessity of the hour and Dinan’s narrative puts it at the forefront of the social milieu in all its glory. Disappoint Me is so frighteningly accurate that it’s certainly going to be a part of the literary zeitgeist and Nicola Dinan’s voice, agency and craft are here to stay.

~ JUST A GAY BOY. 🏳️‍⚧️🏳️‍🌈

Nobody Needs To Know

Nobody needs to know, that’s exactly what is being told to intersex children and their parents. It’s as if intersex bodies are a pathology to be diagnosed and then treated. As if intersex bodies are embodiments of shame that need to be hidden, corrected or obliterated. This is what Pidgeon Pagonis, the author experienced as an intersex person, when they were a child. They were subjected to brutal corrective surgeries while their parents were being misguided and misinformed about their condition. The doctors at the Lurie Children’s Hospital in Chicago, took it upon themselves to pathologise Pidgeon’s intersexuality, performed the unnecessary surgeries and decided that they were to be raised as a girl. Years later, as an adolescent, when Pidgeon realises that they are intersex and that what they had was in fact, Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome, which doesn’t warrant invasive and intrusive medical intervention, they decide to be an advocate for their own intersexuality which later organically morphs into activism for the advocacy and upliftment of the intersex community.

The book, Pidgeon’s memoir, is a testament of the medical gaslighting that they endured for years and the erasure they experienced of their personhood. The refusal to acknowledge the bodily harm that was voluntarily inflicted on Pidgeon by the doctors is bewildering. They decide to fight the system that denies intersex individuals their bodily autonomy by taking on the doctors at the hospital. Pidgeon repeatedly makes the case for intersex individuals having the right to choose their surgery if they wish to, once they are able enough and grown enough to make such an informed decision. This arduous journey sees its fair share of trials and tribulations as Pidgeon grows from being timid to tenacious, from being gullible to informed, and from being a single person to becoming a community. As the hospital and one particular doctor, Dr Earl Cheng, continue to perform unwarranted surgeries under the garb of parental pressures, Pidgeon takes the battle to the streets of Chicago that sees an unprecedented support from their network, friends, and also the transgender community.

Nobody needs to know is a bold and moving memoir about securing belief in one’s body especially when the world has made one disbelieve its beauty. Through this, the author continually comments on the harms that get perpetuated due to the obduracy of a binary mentality and hence viewing the society at large as binary. They also highlight the fraught relationship with their mother when they decide to live their truth unapologetically and simultaneously also decide to launch a full challenge against a revered medical institution like Lurie. The book, unbeknownst to Pagonis, tacitly celebrates their generosity of spirit, in bringing together everyone who has ever been wronged by the bigotry of a binary society, to become a force that will challenge these notions and help everyone visualise an existence that’s unique and congruent with their truth.

There is no reliable national data on the number of intersex individuals in India. Estimates cited by activists point to approximately 10,000 intersex babies born each year in India. In April 2019, the Madras High Court (Madurai Bench) issued a landmark ruling banning non-essential “sex-normalizing” surgeries on infants and children with intersex traits, allowing exceptions only for life-threatening situations. Hundreds of such surgeries are still being performed in Tamil Nadu despite the 2019 ban. There is no centralized registry or national data on intersex surgeries in India. There is no pan-India law yet that bans these needless and exploitative intersex surgeries. Intersex individuals are often rendered invisible or they are mislabeled and misidentified and continue to be subjected to societal and medical abuse due to absence of education, awareness, culpability and law enforcement. They remain invisible even in the LGBTQIA+ spaces. This begs the question of whether we, the queers have let an entire community down? Is ‘I’ in the LGBTQIA+ spectrum just a letter or does it also call for more inclusivity?

~ JUST A GAY BOY. 🏳️‍🌈

Everything Is Fine Here

📍 Uganda 🇺🇬

Eighteen-year-old Aine Kamara is excited to meet her elder sister Mbabazi at their university, where Mbabazi, a gynecologist practising in Kampala, has been invited as a guest speaker. Aine is aware that her sister is a lesbian and is pleasantly surprised when she arrives with her partner Achen to deliver the guest lecture. Aine and Achen hit it off instantly, and soon Achen assumes the role of a confidante. Mbabazi and Achen try their best to keep their relationship discreet from the prying eyes of a very homophobic and biblically grounded society, despite the challenges it brings. Aine is juggling her passion for ornithology and her yearning to work in a sanctuary with her upcoming university exams and the overbearing aspirations of her parents regarding her future educational prospects. Unfortunately, a tragedy upends their lives, and a seemingly benevolent decision taken by Aine during this turbulent time fractures her relationship with her sister and even threatens the love between Mbabazi and Achen.

Everything Is Fine Here does come across as Aine’s coming-of-age story, but Mbabazi and her queer relationship feature prominently in the narrative. In fact, it has been a deliberate attempt by the author to narrate a queer relationship through the eyes of a straight ally. Aine becomes privy to the nuances of queer love and what it takes to be queer and have a relationship in a country that punishes homosexuality. As an ally, Aine embodies the role and offers her unwavering support to her sister and her partner. She has a falling out with her devout Christian mother over Mbabazi’s relationship, which prompts her to leave her house in Bigodi and travel to Kampala. Through these trials and tribulations, Aine comes into her own, understands her tenacity, acknowledges her overwhelming grief, and affirms her own sexual awakening.

This is a book that celebrates relationships; whether it is Aine and Mbabazi processing their loss together by honouring and remembering the person lost, or Mbabazi and Achen working together to value their commitment and love by understanding and accepting each other’s differences, or Aine and Achen discovering this new bond that helps them confide without judgement. This is a thoroughly Ugandan book. Ugandan culture and cuisine are effortlessly embedded in the narrative, as are the language and various dialects. This is also a book that attempts to normalise queer relationships in a homophobic and fundamentalist society. Though Mbabazi and Achen keep their relationship under the radar, it still epitomises an act of defiance and the necessity to have agency over one’s life; and how authenticity can act like a permission slip for others to self-express and embrace their individuality.

Iryn Tushabe, who identifies as bisexual, is a Ugandan-Canadian writer and journalist, born in Uganda and now based in Regina. Her work, spanning creative nonfiction and short fiction, has appeared in several prestigious outlets. She was also a finalist for the Caine Prize for African Writing in 2021. Everything Is Fine Here is her debut novel.

Homosexuality has been illegal in Uganda since 1950, a law enacted during British protectorate rule (1894–1962). The Anti-Homosexuality Act was passed by the Ugandan Parliament in March 2023 and was signed into law by President Museveni on May 26, 2023. The key provisions include life imprisonment, prison terms for up to 20 years, and even the death penalty. The law has led to increased arrests, raids, extortion, violence, and widespread persecution of LGBTQ+ individuals and supporters. India decriminalised homosexuality on September 6, 2018; however, societal acceptance has been hard to come by. Queer individuals and those in queer relationships that challenge heteronormativity and the gender binary still face ridicule, discrimination, prejudice, and violence. The U.K. decriminalised homosexuality in 1967 but left colonial versions in place in its protectorates and colonies. Yet these same colonisers do have the audacity to preach equality, inclusivity, and human rights. The colonised peoples need to realise that homosexuality was never a Western import. In fact, to quote from the book:

“Did they not know this bit of history? Was it lost on them that homophobia, not homosexuality, was the import?”

~ JUST A GAY BOY. 🏳️‍🌈

My Walk to Equality: Essays, Stories and Poetry- Papua New Guinean Women Write

📍 Papua New Guinea 🇵🇬

May is celebrated as the Pacific Islander Heritage Month and my pick this year was from Papua New Guinea (PNG). The book is an anthology of essays, poems and stories, written exclusively by Papua New Guinean women. There are more than 80 contributions from 40 writers, and the majority are in their 30s. For the uninitiated, PNG is a country located in Southwestern Pacific Ocean, occupying half of the island of New Guinea (the western half belongs to Indonesia). The country gained independence from Australia on September 16, 1975. It is one of the most rural countries and comprises of over 800 tribes. It’s also the most linguistically diverse country in the world, and about 839 languages are spoken in PNG. It also has the dubious distinction of having one of the highest rates of violence against women in the world. This book, therefore, captues the ongoing struggles of women who are trying to achieve a semblance of equality in a particularly patriarchal society.

The book has been divided into sections; Relationships, Self Awareness and Challenging gender roles and breaking glass ceilings. However, the overarching theme throughout is the demand for women’s rights and equality, the necessity to disband the deep rooted misogyny and the call for action against sexual and domestic violence. The writers boldly dissect the prevailing patriarchal culture in which young women are being brought up and how men are groomed to be sexist and gynophobic. The society at large is perverse to women being educated and taking up spaces in public and private sectors. Working women are often scorned at, receive no help at home and face uphill battles navigating professional environments. These courageous women writers, many of whom are teachers and working professionals, have urged PNG women to fight for their education and never to dismiss any opportunity that could guarantee financial independence, which can then pave the way for the upliftment of their collective consciousness and thus inspire future generations.

Rashmii Amoah Bell, who has edited this book, is a Papua New Guinean writer and editor renowned for her contributions to amplifying women’s voices in her country. From this book, a few writings stood out to me for their poignancy and simplicity yet relaying the angst, anguish and resilience. The Expectation of Marriage by Watna Mori explores how colonial past and intergenerational traumas shape the reality of PNG women; how the entirety of a woman in PNG has been reduced to her marital status and the writer wonders what happens to women who consciously decide to live outside this boxed existence. Betty Lovai writes in her essay, Papua New Guinean women in Leadership, the harsh truths about securing leadership roles as a woman in PNG and the governmental and societal inertia in bringing about any positive impact. In the story, On the hunt for a New Language in Papua New Guinea, Samantha Kusari, makes a case for languages that are dying across the country. In the search for a tokples (dialect), the writer gets introduced to another rare dialect, Akadou, and hence realises the rich legacy of a language that now has only three living people speaking it. In Walk to Equality in Education, Roslyn Tony, laments about the insurmountable hardships met by teachers and women principals in the field of education. Caroline Evari’s poem, Who are you to tell me it’s wrong, explores the possibility of an egalitarian household in PNG. The brilliant essay, The Inappropriate Cultural Appropriation of the Bilum by Elvina Ogil, articulates the perils of the harmful practice of such a cultural theft. She provides the nuances that make us ponder the consequences of a heritage hijack, that which can undermine and undervalue an entire civilisation. Tanya Zeriga-Alone, in her thought provoking essay, Which way Papua New Guinea? Look in the Mirror; presents an insider’s perspective on the current situation in the country and says, that the only way PNG can move forward towards ensuring equality and equity, is by disregarding mediocrity, respecting fellow citizens and local talents, and understanding the collective resilience shared by all the tribes of PNG.

Having read this book, I wonder if the conditions for Indian women are any different; rather how eerily similar are Indian and PNG women’s struggles. On the surface of it, we may seem to be a society where women have rights, but certainly there’s no equality yet. If you scratch this surface, you will notice uncomfortable truths and predatory practices of misogyny, chauvinism, sexism and violence deeply rooted and being disguised as appropriated and misplaced feminism. We may be into our 79th year of independence and the fastest growing economy in the world, but none of that or the current ubiquitous vermilion can hide the fact, that women in our country are unsafe, undervalued, excluded, oppressed (especially Dalit and tribal women) and marginalised.

~ JUST A GAY BOY. 🧐

Behind You Is The Sea

The book is a collection of stories by Palestinian Americans living in Baltimore. Each chapter is dedicated to a different character and as you read along, you realise all of these characters and their families are interconnected.

With this book, the author, Susan Muaddi Darraj, has tried to reflect upon the intergenerational chasm that exists inevitably and yet how the various generations are inextricably linked. Though Palestinian heritage is the commonality, the newer generations are more American than Palestinian in their personalities and perspectives. This remains the bone of contention among the older folks who are unable to make peace with their diasporic status and are torn living a life that oscillates between reminiscences and resentments.

The book also tackles some serious issues that plague the Palestinian society such as honour killing, patriarchy, chauvinism, domestic violence and misogyny. Women are expected to be subservient to men, regardless of their achievements. The chapter in which a father is disgruntled and disowns his daughter for having an abortion sans marriage and having a Black boyfriend is unnerving. The chapter wherein a mother constantly chastises one of her professionally successful daughters for being divorced and not having children in comparison to her other daughter who is married and has numerous children, speaks highly about internalised patriarchy. Only the last chapter takes place in Palestine, when one of the characters is forced to bring his father’s corpse to Palestine for burial as per his last wish. What was supposed to be a solemn event, turns into an emotionally frustrating exercise when the son learns the benevolent side to his father’s personality, especially when not even an iota of that benevolence was ever bestowed upon him or his sister.

Susan Muaddi Darraj is a Palestinian American writer who has authored several collections of fiction, young adult and children’s books. She is the recipient of various awards; winning the Arab American Book award in 2021 and 2016 for Farah Rocks and A Curious Land, respectively. A Curious Land was also shortlisted for Palestine Book Award.

Behind You Is The Sea, my pick for Arablit April, was a unique reading experience for me because this was the first Palestinian book that I have read, (and I have read a few!) that spoke about Palestinian Christian families compared to the majority of Palestinian literature that is about Palestinian Arabs. Palestinian Christians form a sizeable minority in Palestine and the book helped me understand the inseparability and intertwining of Christian and Arab cultures.

Now, almost all of the social ills highlighted in this book are inherently prevalent in our Indian society. This goes to show that Indians and Palestinians are not very different because we were all colonised people and carry the repercussions of the British colonisation and occupation through generations. Having said that, it doesn’t mean we continue to have these colonial hangovers till today. Yet somehow, the general Indian population now supports Israel, a current day coloniser, who has mercilessly and relentlessly continued the genocide in Gaza since October 7, 2023. Have we forgotten our own history or has the prevailing Islamophobic jingoism made us all intellectually bankrupt commentators?

~ JUST A GAY BOY. 🍉

Universality

A lockdown rave by a group of nouveau political activists, The Universalists, becomes a crime scene that involves a gold ingot. Hannah is an investigative journalist trying to unearth the happenings of that day. Hannah has not had any luck in her professional life. She has been largely dissatisfied with her work and income and the pandemic has made it worse. So she jumps at the opportunity to investigate this outlandish story. The reportage propels her into the limelight; though when a movie adaptation of the crime is commissioned, she finds herself oddly sidelined.

The crime in question and also the first chapter of the book involves a young man, Jake, who bludgeons another guy, Richard Spencer, a capitalist mogul, with a gold bar and runs away with it. Jake is the son of Lenny, a journalist whose incendiary writing garners both controversy and admiration. These characters and a gold bar form the crux around which the author weaves in the story that becomes a powerful meditation on language, ideology and social justice.

Natasha Brown’s’ second book, Universality, is a searing satire on the misuse, misinterpretation and manipulation of wokeness. The necessity of diversity in every sphere of life which had a global public interest leading to an awakening almost, has soon been chastised politically and has become a polarising topic. The liberality and equity that should be the cornerstone of any impartial society has become a means to manoeuvre the marginalised sections towards so called inclusive spaces just for tokenism and at the same time, these virtues have been weaponised as an attack on the meritocracy and social standing of the privileged and essentially a colourblind class. Through the characters in this book, Brown dissects the appalling banality of virtue signalling under the guise of which, multitudes of covert racism and ethnic appropriation take place and remain unchallenged. Brown’s language in the book reflects the performative morality that has become a part of the societal zeitgeist and goes unchecked in these polite, progressive circles which simultaneously is also quietly dismantling the real woke phenomenon and anti-capitalist doctrine.

The character that stood out to me in this ensemble of white characters was Lenny. A provocative writer who has positioned herself as an antiwoke messiah and whose speeches and writings now provide succour to the disgruntled elite. Her flippancy, her disregard for any possible retribution for her acerbic vitriol on liberalism yet commanding applause and admiration for her attack on chauvinism and misogyny, makes her a morally grey character. Despite her obviously problematic persona, I couldn’t stop myself from rooting for her when she stands her ground against the chauvinistic interviewer at the literature festival. This left me questioning my own moral compass and I was bewildered at my judgement or lack there of; that, when I was faced with racism and feminism, I chose a racist feminist without a second thought. And this brings me to the brilliance of Natasha Brown’s Universality, which has shown that racism, colorism and featurism can come disguised as feminism and diversity, and it can remain undisputed and oblivious.

Natasha Brown, as an author has grown with this book. In Assembly, her writing was a tad stifling and claustrophobic. It almost felt, she was being cautious. However, with Universality, she is decidedly defiant. She’s unabashed, unapologetic and completely fearless. As a Black author, Brown has written Universality, which is about white people and their morbid obsession to be seen as an all-encompassing and racially benevolent group. Hence, the book is radical in many ways and presents a brand new voice that is determined to make you uncomfortable about your conscious and unconscious biases.

Now, I do have a thought. If one were to replace the whites in the book with the upper castes in India, the language would not change at all. The dynamics would hold. Because there is, I believe, a sinister universality that ties racism and casteism together.

~ JUST A GAY BOY. 🌝🌚