#readaroundtheworld – the shiny diaries

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. 🏳️‍🌈🌈

Off-White

📍 Suriname 🇸🇷

Bee Vanta is sick and she knows she’s dying. She is the matriarch of her large estranged family and has been disappointed with everyone’s life choices. She, a white Dutch woman married a Black man, Anton, who served in the military. Winston, the apple of her eye, abandons her and goes off to the Netherlands, and establishes a life there with his partner Lya, never to return. Louise, her daughter, has four children, Heli, Imker, Babs and Audi, from different men, and has difficulty in sustaining relationships with men because of the cycles of exploitation and abuse. Laura, her other daughter, suffers a psychological collapse after her partner’s deception and now resides in an asylum. Rogier, her last son, is a doctor in the Netherlands, who left Bee and Suriname for a better life. Bee suffers the biggest setback when her favourite granddaughter, Heli, also decides to go to the Netherlands to pursue her dreams. Imker takes it upon herself to care for her grandmother and decides to live with Bee and tends to her with utmost love and affection, cooking for her, cleaning the house and even bathing her. As Bee navigates her distraught relationships both in memory and in person, she struggles to accept the crumbling dynamics of her family, the love which seems distant and unattainable, and she questions everything that has led her to this day, her decisions and mistakes including a secret, a dark and ruthless chapter of her life, that has cost her equanimity and composure leading to a permanent fissure within her heart.

Off-White is a story that is embroiled in the familial interpersonal relationships and unresolved conflicts, differences and heartaches. The various mother-daughter relationships which form the greater part of the narrative are shrouded in lethargic love, abysmal animosity and a conspicuous callousness. These women seem to carry the intergenerational traumas and a sense of repentance unbeknownst to them, struggling to understand its history, that has cast a spell on their present and that which is also threatening to ruin their future.

Bee hasn’t come to terms with Louise’s choices in life and doesn’t think highly about her. According to Bee, Louise’s inability to have a husband has been her downfall and hence the necessity for her promiscuity. Bee has also internalised Laura’s shame for being unstable and depressed. Louise tries to maintain a stoic facade when internally she remains fragile and fundamentally distracted. Her repeated attempts to seek companionship, despite countless betrayals, can seem as a call of defiance in the times of hopelessness, but simultaneously it also portrays her adamancy in embracing solitude. Heli, though charted her own escape from the confines and traps of an overbearing and dysfunctional family, is unable to resist the melancholy that it has brought in its wake. She is also juggling a strangely toxic relationship with a married man, who is in Suriname while indulging in passionate encounters with another man in the Netherlands. This dichotomy and dishonesty claims her spirit and consciousness as she meanders through one questionable choice after another. Imker, seems to have intentionally decided to clean up the emotional mess of her family. Whilst caring for Bee, she chooses to distance herself from a maternal illusion and a sisterly loss. As she focuses on her two other siblings, she tries to objectively analyse the desolation that Louise and Heli have left in her life. Her relationship with a Muslim man, Umar, gives her perspective, possibility and permission to have wants and needs and somewhere during this journey she starts to find her personality.

Off-White is one of those demanding works of literature that has been written deliberately to unsettle you. It is controversial, convoluted and courageous. It hides the blasphemy in the whispers of secrecy and inconvenience. It is inconsistent, indelibly unconventional yet remains as a potent offering of love, compassion and forgiveness. The book explores dysfunctional relationships and dissects its origins and decay. The narrative sensitively captures the sexual exploration, experience and exploitation of the various women characters. The sexuality is boldly infinite, the sexual violence squeamish and shocking. The book also delves into the politics of colourism and racism and how skin colour can influence kinship and familial ties. The title of the book, Off-White, is in fact rather symbolic and almost feels like a scathing critique on the racial inadequacies of the society at large.

The characters in the book provoke you as a reader, compel you to submit to their chosen adversities, to accept their misfortunes and mindless perversity. At the same time, they exhibit catharsis through their flaws and friction. The daughters and granddaughters of Bee seem to be acting as a receptacle of her maternal malevolence and benevolence, as Bee continues to self-flagellate for her prejudices and pride. This trickles down through the progeny as her children and grandchildren inherit the same tendencies and continue to lead lives that can only be described as off-colour.

Astrid Roemer, is a Surinamese Dutch writer and teacher, and the first Caribbean author to win the P.C. Hooft Award (a Dutch-language literary lifetime achievement award) in 2016. In 2021, she received the Prijs der Nederlandse Letteren (the most prestigious literary award in the Dutch speaking world, awarded every three years) becoming the first Surinamese winner. Her book, On A Woman’s Madness, first published in Dutch in 1982, was translated into English and published in February 2023. In September 2023, it was longlisted for the National Book Award for Translated Literature, and in 2025 was longlisted for the International Booker Prize. Off-White, was first published in Dutch in 2019, and its English translation was published in 2024. The translators, Lucy Scott and David McKay, have done a prodigious job in translating this monumental work of Roemer.

Astrid Roemer is a tour de force in the world of literature. Her writing is problematic, poignant and purposeful. She writes to explore the endless possibilities of living and existing. Suriname is the soul of Off-White as she takes us on a geographical journey from Paramaribo to Nieuw Nickerie. The story is Surinamese in its entirety and Roemer hasn’t made any concessions or given any explanations for people who aren’t Surinamese or familiar with the country. The colonial history of Suriname is the silent subtext that courses through every page in the book. The language is piercing and punishing in equal measure. Roemer’s Off-White is an affirmation of the fact that a book can be a masterclass in storytelling and a masterpiece of literature while retaining its integrity and authenticity.

If Han Kang illuminated the fragility of the human condition, Astrid Roemer exposes its fractures with equal brilliance. Having said that, I think I have a new favourite.

~ 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. 🧐

We Do Not Part

📍South Korea 🇰🇷

When Han Kang writes you dissolve and absolve; you assimilate and disintegrate; you discombobulate, yet transcend and transform. She writes so that we can feel the pain; she writes so that we can be bruised; she writes so that we can be healed. Her literature is enigmatic; brimming with incomprehensible and incongruent complexities which when mulled over reverberates, retaliates and reveals its naïveté and nuance. We Do Not Part is a summation of Kang’s ingenuity and humility in harnessing language to create a story that is literally haunting and sublime in equal measure.

Kyungha is having a miserable time bracing the sweltering heat of Seoul. She is simultaneously questioning her life’s choices and purpose, whilst being a recluse and starving herself. She reminisces and contemplates the changing dynamics of her relationship with her friend Inseon, a former documentarian, who now resides in Jeju island working as a carpenter and having her own studio. As the blistering summer gives way to chilly winter, Kyungha receives a frantic call from Inseon who is now hospitalised in Seoul following an accident. When Kyungha goes to visit her, learns about her medical predicament and observes the gruesome treatment being carried out; Inseon requests her to go to her home in Jeju island to feed her bird who has now been without any food or water since Inseon’s admission, hence could die anytime. Kyungha reluctantly proceeds on this arduous journey to Jeju in the midst of a severe blizzard probably thinking that saving the bird is her purpose. The blizzard is so extreme and violent that travel and communication become a nightmare. As Kyungha trudges through snow covered lonesome and terrifying terrain, enveloped in biting cold and formidable darkness, she falls, gets hurt, loses consciousness, wonders about an impending frostbite, and finally reaches Inseon’s house, only to find the bird dead.

With the relentless snowstorm and an ominous tenebrosity, Kyungha tries to make sense of her onerous journey while feeling marooned and helpless. Suddenly she finds Inseon in the house and it appears to her as if Inseon had been here all the while. As she is examining the impossibility of the current moment, and the possibility of her death, and all this being a subconscious spectacle or an apparition trick being played by her dying mind; Inseon starts narrating her story, why Jeju is so close to her heart and why has she chosen to be here despite it being far away from the mainland. She then recounts the horrendous Jeju massacre of 1948 through newspaper articles and old photographs wherein 30000 islanders were killed. Inseon highlights her mother, Jeongsim’s fight for justice who pressurises the authorities for an investigation, mobilises the aggrieved communities together to start a movement for identifying the victims that were killed and buried. Through this exercise, her mother hoped to heal her own loss that she and her family endured during the massacre and expected closure to an ambivalent grief.

The three protagonists are the most unassuming, ordinary women who are weak and apathetic in many mundane scenarios but assuming stoicism and steely grit in extraordinary circumstances. Kyungha’s unwavering determination to reach Inseon’s house as she wades through knee deep snow in a no mans land, is of epic proportions. Inseon through her craft and values wants people to know the anguish her family and the islanders at large suffered in the massacre. Inseon’s mother, who becomes a postmemory in the narrative, embodies vulnerability in all its glory. She shows how vulnerability is a strength to reckon with. She demonstrates perseverance in the most punitive of circumstances. But the beauty of Han Kang’s three women, is their willingness and ability to confront cataclysm and catastrophe singularly, hence bringing plurality to the multidimensional multiverse that is womanhood. There are two other unlikely characters in the book; snow and flame. For the greater part of the book, the sinister snow keeps the characters and the readers almost in a chokehold. It’s merciless, icy, unyielding that is meant to suffocate. Then there’s flame, who is trying to provide a respite from the foreboding, yet the shadows that it brings in its wake intermingle with the prevailing doom.

We Do Not Part is a shapeshifter. Scorching, sultry Seoul shifts into arctic Jeju. The narrative voice keeps shifting from Kyungha and Inseon; the women themselves shift from torpidity to vitality, from aggression to acquiescence. The story shifts between life and death effortlessly. Han Kang begins the story languidly, suddenly making it breathless and claustrophobic and decelerates just for a moment before introducing us to the historical carnage that ripped apart people and a peninsula. She wants us to gasp, squirm, question and feel uncomfortable. This is literature that is porous to humanity’s evils, disregards pragmatism and polity, and intends to induce a paralysis of hope.

The Jeju massacre started as an uprising on Jeju island in April 1948 till May 1949. In the aftermath of World War Two, the newly liberated Korean Peninsula was emerging from Japanese colonisation (1910-1945), and Koreans were determined to develop a unified nation. Three months after the Japanese were ousted, a new occupying force, the USA, arrived on Jeju. On Jeju, opposition to a divided Korea was strong. At the heart of the incident was widespread opposition to US supported election that would create a separate Korean government in the south, dividing it from the north. The US was concerned about Jeju becoming a “red island”. The left wing groups were crushed, police brutality increased leading to a thirst of vengeance among police, military and people’s committees on both the left and the right. What followed was violence, deaths, displacement and destruction of some 300 villages. Some of Jeju’s most popular tourist attractions today were the site of civilian massacres. Ultimately, a south only government was formed, the Republic of Korea, headed by US backed President. The fallout of this was the Korean War from 1950-53 between North Korea and South Korea that ended up having 3 million civilian deaths and 2 million civilian casualties.

We Do Not Part is a necessity as it exposes a forgotten, rather undisclosed part of history. e. yaewon and Paige Aniyah Morris have done the herculean task of translating Kang’s intricate and devastating prose from Korean to English. History has always been written by people in power. Majority of the history that we have been made to know is essentially a history that is whitewashed, with little to no reference of the colonised people and the atrocities committed to them, and it’s a history that forever exonerates the colonisers. Han Kang has taken the reigns to enlighten us about her Korean history as it happened and is demanding answers. Her prose shows us how memory outlasts violence. Sometimes, literature is supposed to trigger, to shame and to call out the so called powerful for their inherent perfidiousness. Kang’s literature does that.

~ JUST A GAY BOY. ✨

Whale

📍 South Korea 🇰🇷

Geumbok is an extraordinarily fierce and courageous woman who is set out to expand her life, to bring enormity in all its glory and forms into her life, so that she can regale in its obscenity. As a child, she sees a whale and gets enamoured by it. The whale becomes an inspiration for her to dream big, to pursue and achieve impossible things, especially things that are deemed undoable by a woman. She runs away from her small village, comes to the Wharf, meets the fishmonger with whom she starts a fish drying business. There she encounters Geokjeong, falls in love with him, marries him and later realises his stupidity and inherent violent tendencies. Catastrophes befall her in continuum that leads her to a nondescript village, Pyeongdae. Here, she becomes the talk of the town, builds a cafe, starts a brick making business and opens a movie theatre designed as a whale. She becomes rich, arrogant and doesn’t predict the unfortunate destiny that is awaiting her, which true be told, had always been encircling her.

Chunhui, is Geumbok’s mute daughter, forgotten by the mother and the people around her. It’s her enormous size that gets people’s attention but soon their interest wades away because of her inability to communicate and comprehend. But she does possess a magical ability to talk to elephants and Jumbo becomes her only confidante. She learns to make bricks, adores daisy fleabanes and forever wonders why the world is the way it is. She becomes a suspect in a disaster that destroys Pyeongdae, gets incarcerated, undergoes unimaginable torture in the prison and is released after many years. She goes back to the ramshackle city only to find it in ruins. She then goes on to lead an absolutely lonely, marooned life making bricks.

There are hoards of interesting characters in the book like the one eyed woman, the old crone, the twins, Mun, Ladybug etc who bring their own whimsy, quirks and terror to the narrative. Pathos and grief await at every turn for all of these characters. Despondency and mayhem form the hallmarks of the plot. However, despite the grotesque events that make you squirm and your skin crawl, the ingenuity of the writing is such that it succeeds in keeping you hooked.

Whale, shortlisted for the International Booker Prize 2023, is a story like no other. Even if I try my best, I wouldn’t be able to classify its genre or its style. To say it is unique would be a literary disservice. It’s a story that has history, folklore, magical realism, dark humour and feminism. The narrative for two thirds of the book is fast paced while the remaining third assumes a relaxed tone. The words are full of vivid imagery. They convey innocence, violence, hatred, longing, iniquity and doom. At the same time they also bring about revulsion by depicting bodily fluids, diseases and putrefaction. Sex finds liberal mention through the pages and the author doesn’t shy away from being graphic, problematic and harsh about it.

Geumbok’s character is one that is going to stay with me for a long time. She is multilayered, multifaceted and multitalented. She’s sexual and owns her sexuality. She resists every patriarchal norm and challenges everyone’s, including the readers, innate prejudices and chauvinism through her beguilingly subtle and brutally grandiose ways. She represents liberality and makes us question stereotypes. She’s selfish in her wants, selfless about her prowess. She’s flawed, witty, promiscuous, odious,mysterious and extremely narcissistic. There’s no one like Geumbok.

Though Geumbok grabs our attention, Chunhui asserts her presence with her silence. In silence, she finds her strength too. She epitomises resilience and perseverance. Often times, characters like Chunhui dont find mention in books and media, let alone be the protagonist, but in this book, the author has projected the boredom and mundanity of Chunhui to be purposeful leading to an awe inspiring but lugubrious climax.

The author, Cheon Myeong-kwan, is a South Korean author, screenwriter and film director. This book has been translated into English by Chi-Young Kim who has done an incredible job in translating this phenomenal piece of Korean literature. Whale comes across as an astonishing feminist literature where women drive the story and men play second fiddle to them. Feminism, in this book doesn’t make men hapless and victimised, rather it asserts itself as being deliberately provocative and intentional. There’s three more things that enrapture the narrative; fishes and their fishy smell, bricks and daisy fleabanes.

Read Whale. Today!

~ JUST A GAY BOY. 🤓

Being Queer and Somali: LGBT Somalis at Home and Abroad

📍 Somalia 🇸🇴

Somalia is the easternmost country in Africa and located in the Horn of Africa. Mogadishu is the capital and largest city. Around 85% of Somalia’s residents are ethnic Somalis; and Somali is the primary language. The country has been ravaged by a civil war that started in the 1980s as a resistance to the military junta. There is an ongoing phase of the civil war which is concentrated in southern and central Somalia that began in January 2009. Al-Shabaab, a militant terrorist organisation who have pledged allegiance to al-Qaeda is actively involved in the war and despite the growing challenges, still controls large swathes of territory in southern Somalia. LGBTQ people in Somalia face severe adversity and consensual same sex sexual activity is illegal for men and women. In areas controlled by al-Shabaab and in Jubaland, capital punishment is frequently executed.

Afdhere Jama is a Somali writer and filmmaker, born and raised in Somalia who moved to America as a teenager. Jama identifies as queer and Muslim. He has written six books till date.

Now, who would have thought about Queer Somalis? Hardly any! Nobody thinks about queer people in Africa and definitely not in a Muslim majority country like Somalia. And that’s where, the author, through this book, not only has shattered our preconceived notions and ill informed opinions and prejudices, but also has shown that, queer Somalis are living their lives unapologetically. This book is a testament to the fact that LGBT individuals in Somalia despite being in a hostile environment have had the courage to navigate the precarious circumstances to thrive, some doing it cautiously in the country, others having escaped to other countries and being advocates for the diaspora queer Somalis and also for those back home.

The book starts with the author giving us a comprehensive overview of the country, culture, history, geography and the various tribes with their languages and dialects. He has also provided an essay on what it means to be queer, as a Muslim and as a Somali. He has given us a snapshot on the bullying faced by LGBT people in the country and the everyday slangs that are used for them. Through the book, he has also explained the origins, the continuity and the consequences of the civil war. With this background, he introduces us to a diverse and interesting plethora of LGBT Somalis who he has interviewed for the book. These individuals, resplendent in their own uniqueness, tell their stories of identity, struggle, escape, vulnerability, grief and fear; but forever standing tall and constantly reminding us readers of their supreme fortitude, resilience and charisma.

The stories span from Mogadishu to cities and towns in Somalia, and to cities across the world such as Paris, London, Toronto, Oslo, Dubai, Jeddah, Cape Town, Nairobi, Washington, Atlanta and even our very own Mumbai. The Mumbai story features a Somali gay guy Kamal, working as a high profile escort in the city, living the good life who decides to quit the profession in the future and pursue his career in IT. Many stories about individuals fleeing the country as a refugee and/or illegal immigrant are gut wrenching for the sheer amount of brutality that they experience. But what’s even more astonishing is their ability to reconcile with their traumas, not dwelling in them and ultimately choosing to live, dream and hope.

Every story is a gem but the ones that touched me deeply are as follows, described in a nutshell. Badal from Bosaaso comes out to his family after being married, is forced to flee to Mogadishu and establishes a relationship with a married man, Mubarak. The story of a labeeb, (a person who is neither a boy nor a girl; as said by the narrator Abshir), whose gender remains ambiguous, amongst the Sufis in the city of Bardera, is fascinating to say the least. Nuuroow’s a gay boy living in the town of Baraawe; a town controlled by al-Shabaab. Despite the overbearing presence of radicalism and homophobia, Nuuroow and his friends indulge in clandestine gay parties dancing to Bollywood music and living life in debauchery and defiance. Shamsa and Isfahan are a lesbian couple from Hargeisa, Somaliland, who had lived together in Rome, and are back in Hargeisa living in a seven bedroom house with four other lesbian couples. Rahma’s from Geneva, Switzerland, who has finished her medical school and waiting to be a gynaecologist; is a fierce feminist educating the Somali community on the horrible practice of FGM (Female Genital Mutilation); loves her vagina and is looking forward to marrying her girlfriend. Hamdi, a Somali trans woman, from Waqooyi in Northern Somalia, ran away from an abusive gay relationship to Mogadishu, then to a Kenyan refugee camp in Mombasa, finally emigrating to Seattle and has undergone gender reassignment surgery. She’s now a nurse in the US and happily married to a Somali man. Dadirow’s a black, muscular, gay man; is HIV positive, who experienced a traumatic childhood due to an abusive father, escaped to Ethiopia before coming to the US. Now he leads a disciplined life, loving and respecting his body, things that never occurred to him during his recalcitrant and reckless years.

February is LGBTQ History Month. I am ecstatic to have read this book during this month. World over when LGBTQ individuals are being mistreated, misunderstood, misrepresented, maligned and marginalised, the Somalis are showing us how to survive these odds and make your voice heard. Through this book and their glorious existence, they are paving the way for so many of us to emulate and hence discover ourselves. Afdhere Jama, through his stellar writing, interviewing and compassion, has shown how to portray diversity and inclusivity. He has represented gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people from Somalia and the Somalian diaspora with equity, dignity and integrity. The book is a masterclass in writing and representation which when done rightfully, makes the unseen seen and the unheard heard.

Read this book to be inspired, read it to be humbled; every step of the way.

~ JUST A GAY BOY. 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️

The Restaurant of Lost Recipes

📍 Kyoto, Japan 🇯🇵

In Kyoto’s Shomen-dori, in a nondescript building, lies a quaint restaurant, Kamogawa Diner. Run by the chef Nagare Kamogawa, it specialises in Kyoto cuisine. The food is wholesome and customer satisfaction is of paramount importance to the chef. But there’s something unique about this restaurant and it isn’t its no-frills food. The restaurant also doubles up a food detective agency, which is handled by Nagare’s daughter, Koishi.

People come to Kamogawa Diner not just to relish its simple yet delectable fare, but also in search of lost recipes. Recipes that have been forgotten through the sands of time but its flavour has lingered in their souls forever. Recipes that bring back emotional memories; recipes that remind people of their connections and relationships; recipes that rekindle grief, gratitude and gaiety; and recipes that evoke visceral and spiritual sensations.

Anybody who comes to the diner for their food detective services is served a set menu by Nagare, followed by Koishi’s meticulous inquiry into the lost recipe that includes its origins, flavours and taste. The discussion often gets emotionally intimate and intense and segues into stories associated with the dish and the impact it has had on the person concerned. After two weeks, when the person comes back, Nagare whips up the exact same recipe which always leaves the guest/s spellbound. He then describes the ways in which he procured the recipe, through his uniquely inventive and intuitive tricks backed by his profound knowledge of Japanese cuisine.

There are six stories in the book each dedicated to a particular dish. The ones that stood out to me were the following. Olympian Kyosuke Kitano, reminisces about his estranged dad’s nori-ben. Nagare’s version floods him with memories, prompting him to relook at the relationship in a new light. Kana Takeda is a single mother who wants the absolute best for her son, Yusuke. When her son keeps craving for her father’s hamburger steak, with whom she has had no contact in years, she is forced to take Nagare’s help. When she eats Nagare’s hamburger steak, she is reminded of familiar flavours and familial bonds. This experience forces her to forgive herself for events that happened outside of her control and simultaneously makes her confront her ego. Yoshie and Masayuki Sakamoto are struggling to grapple with the loss of their son. They request Nagare a particular Christmas cake to be made that their son loved, but they themselves are unable to remember its taste. Nagare jumps through hoops to make the impossible possible and presents them the cake which brings them a step closer to securing closure and processing their grief.

The Restaurant of Lost Recipes, is a feel good, cozy fiction and is the second part in the series. It’s not necessary to have read the first part, The Kamogawa Food Detectives, to read this one. The book is replete with scrumptious, luscious Kyoto dishes that are described punctiliously, akin to a culinary textbook. The author, Hisashi Kashiwai’s elaborate descriptions of the ingredients, textures, flavours and aromas are bound to make any reader salivate. Tofu, mushrooms, sushi, sashimi, broths, eel, mackerel, sardines, distinct Japanese herbs and the various techniques of cooking are elucidated with great detail in the book. You can literally smell the tantalising scents of dashi and miso wafting through the pages of the book. More importantly, the book becomes a melting pot of unpleasant, unresolved human emotions often brimming at the surface, needing just that extra stirring to achieve some sort of resolution. Since millennia, food has been a source to connect people and bring them together. It warms my heart to note how simplistically the author has achieved this feat in the book.

The Restaurant of Lost Recipes is appetising till the last page. It feels moreish. So, are you ready to indulge?

~ JUST A GAY BOY. 🍣🍱🍜

We’ll prescribe you a cat

📍 Kyoto, Japan 🇯🇵

Located in one of the winding lanes of Kyoto, with an address as convoluted and discombobulating as, “East of Takoyakushi Street, south of Tominokoji Street, west of Rokkaku Street, north of Fuyacho Street, Nakagyō Ward, Kyoto”, lies a nondescript, difficult to spot, wellness clinic called, Nakagyō Kokoro Clinic for the Soul, run by Dr Nikké and nurse Chitose. People come here seeking help thinking it’s a mental health clinic and also having heard incredible healing stories, only to find Dr Nikké prescribing a cat (albeit a different cat for every patient) for any and all of their problems. Eccentric much?

The book has five chapters; Bee, Margot, Koyuki, Tank and Tangerine, and Mimita, named after the cat/s that have been prescribed. There’s a line drawing illustrating the cat at the beginning of every chapter. There are a couple of stories that stood out to me. The first is Bee. Shuta Kagawa, is unhappy with his monotonous job wherein his inability to perform the tasks, causes his manager to admonish and humiliate him incessantly. This translates to his personal life as well, having an untidy house and no social connections. On getting Bee, for the first time he starts to tidy up his place, to prevent the cat from swallowing harmful objects. Bee also becomes the reason for him losing his job, that leads him to finding a new job, which he actually starts liking and even the people he works with. Unknowingly Bee becomes instrumental in mediating this long overdue change in Shuta’s life, a change he was scared to seek and commit to, but done ever so organically by a cat.

The second is Koyuki. Megumi Minamida, is having trouble dealing with her ten year old daughter, Aoba. She constantly criticises and reprimands her, gets annoyed with anything and everything that Aoba says. Aoba is having issues at her school which Megumi dismisses as being trivial and instead wonders if she is depressed. She comes to the clinic to seek therapy for Aoba and Dr Nikké hands out a kitten. Suddenly, Megumi is transported back to her childhood, where she too had rescued a kitten but was never allowed to keep it by her mother. Megumi’s mother constantly rebuked her and never let her have any agency. Inadvertently, the kitten becomes a medium for Megumi to address her repressed emotions, making her reflect on her past traumas, that paves a way for her to assuage her daughter’s concerns and forge a new improved relationship.

As you can see, the stories are simple and have been simplistically told. They tackle complex human issues and interactions without being presumptuous and patronising. A special mention of the character nurse Chitose, whose oddities are in a league of their own.

The premise of a doctor prescribing a cat can seem bewilderingly outlandish but somehow manages to come across as heartwarming. Cats become the unlikely catalysts to troubled, irritated, grief stricken human beings in coming to terms with their choices and behaviours which in turn makes them contemplate on the same. Truth be told, cats in the book, don’t do anything magical. They just stare, eat and sleep; but for some unexplainable reason, they melt the stubborn hearts of the humans they have been prescribed to, ultimately bringing relief, joy and solace.

We’ll prescribe you a cat, is a cozy fiction, a genre which is getting highly popular in Japanese literature. The author, Syou Ishida, is Kyoto born and adores her cats. The book has been translated from the Japanese by E Madison Shimoda. The writing is easy, considerate and brings a realm of calm upon the reader. It is quintessentially Japanese in its ethos and presentation. Kyoto comes alive with its quirks and charms through the words of Syou Ishida. However, at the heart of the book is the universal language of acceptance, bonding and belongingness. There isn’t any sermonising, just quiet realisations and reassurances that lift the collective human consciousness.

This is a book that will brighten a dull day. The cats are luscious, fluffy and mysterious. I have always been a dog person, but Syou Ishida might have just converted me!

(Ps. Be ready to meet more cats in, “We’ll prescribe you another cat” releasing later this year.)

~ JUST A GAY BOY. 😺😻

Small Things Like These

📍 Ireland 🇮🇪

It’s Christmas of 1985 in the town of New Ross. Bill Furlong is a coal merchant toiling away feverishly to provide for his wife Eileen and five daughters. The Catholic Church is very influential in the town and Bill regularly supplies coal to them. The nuns know Bill well and admire his work and the commitment towards his family. There’s also a Magdalen laundry attached to the church which is believed to provide shelter to young girls, especially unmarried girls who are pregnant. Rumours abound about the clandestine activities at the laundry and also about the girls who are sheltering there. Most of the townspeople know the workings of the Magdalen laundry and how the church is tacitly involved in its iniquitous affairs. Eileen, doesn’t want to affront anyone; she believes that being a mute spectator would protect her daughters from any future troubles. One day, Bill while dropping off the coal at the church, stumbles upon a young girl who has been locked up in the freezing coal shed without food, water and covered in her excrements. Even in her indisposition she pleads Bill to rescue her and her child who has been forcibly taken away from her by the nuns. As Bill confronts this predicament, he has to simultaneously decide between antagonising the church and his church loving wife, and doing the right thing.

The Magdalene Laundries in Ireland, also known as Magdalene asylums, were institutions usually run by Roman Catholic orders, which operated from the 18th to the late 20th centuries. They were run ostensibly to house “fallen women”, an estimated 30,000 of whom were confined in these laundries. Given Ireland’s historically conservative sexual values, these were a generally accepted social institution well into the second half of the 20th century. They disappeared with changes in sexual mores and a loss of faith in the Catholic Church due to repeated revelations of scandals. Ireland’s last Magdalen asylum imprisoned women until 1996; it’s only in 2001 that the Irish government acknowledged that women in these laundries were victims of abuse and much later in 2013, that a formal state apology was issued.

Claire Keegan, is an Irish writer known for her short stories and the recipient of the Rooney Prize for Irish Literature among various other awards. Small Things Like These won the 2022 Orwell Prize for Political Fiction, was shortlisted for the Rathbones Folio Prize and was the shortest book to be shortlisted for the 2022 Booker Prize. In December 2024, it was Oprah’s Book Club pick. It has been adapted into a film of the same name starring Cillian Murphy.

This novella is a crisp, succinct take on how human beings falter, ponder and ruminate over doing the right thing even when faced with obvious wrongdoings. Most of us don’t want to disturb the status quo. We are ready to be consciously blind to such scenarios and even to wonder if the victim/s rightfully deserved what they endured. Our hypocrisy becomes jarringly evident in our chosen silence. Our activism and our fights are very conditional, provided they don’t cost us our peace and don’t disturb our lives. This is the advice Bill is subjected to from Eileen and others who had his best interest. If you look closer home, the rising Islamophobia and the general intolerance for criticism, though a different issue from what happened in Ireland, hasn’t prompted the majority of us to take a stand, because of the fear of being ostracised by the increasing number of zealots which may include our friends and family, and also the overbearing fear of an almost autocratic, authoritarian government that is trying its might to police secular voices. It is the acceptance of Small Things Like These that lead to big things like xenophobia, genocide and totalitarianism.

The book ends on a cliffhanger moment. Even Oprah, in her podcast, wondered what would happen next. So Claire, please let there be a sequel to Small Things Like These.

~ JUST A GAY BOY. 🥺