Scan barcode
A review by spicysav
God in Pink by Hasan Namir
4.0
Sad sad sad but such beautiful writing. This is the type of piece that makes me want to go back to college, take a creative writing class with Namir, and get to workshop his piece just to be like: nO NoTEs!!! I mean truly there were so many moments that would have been praised in a CW class that only makes me sad that I have not yet talked about this book w someone else.
But is very heavy. A story of a gay man in Iraq where the Islamic law forbids any sort of queer identity. Faced w marrying a women like his family wants him to do or literally dying…. Sorry spoilers. Alongside his story is the story of a sheikh that is confronting (so so literally) queerness in both himself and I’m really existential terms. The way these two stories play (is that the right word? It literally feels like they do on the physical page) with each other makes it all the more devastating.
It moved super super fast. Traumatic things are happening and in the next sentence we are onto something else.
I think the small mentions of the woman’s hyper suppressed role in society is touched upon but too lightly, like it was always brushed over. I also think that if the conclusion is “the only way out alive is America bc freedom is there” then the sheikh is right that that’s not the full picture.
All that being said, the exploration of queerness in different places around the world in literature is pretty new to me. I think this was a really tragic story told beautifully.
But is very heavy. A story of a gay man in Iraq where the Islamic law forbids any sort of queer identity. Faced w marrying a women like his family wants him to do or literally dying…. Sorry spoilers. Alongside his story is the story of a sheikh that is confronting (so so literally) queerness in both himself and I’m really existential terms. The way these two stories play (is that the right word? It literally feels like they do on the physical page) with each other makes it all the more devastating.
It moved super super fast. Traumatic things are happening and in the next sentence we are onto something else.
I think the small mentions of the woman’s hyper suppressed role in society is touched upon but too lightly, like it was always brushed over. I also think that if the conclusion is “the only way out alive is America bc freedom is there” then the sheikh is right that that’s not the full picture.
All that being said, the exploration of queerness in different places around the world in literature is pretty new to me. I think this was a really tragic story told beautifully.