ALT Deconstructing the face of suffering. Noor Al-Ahmad combined two interesting elements in the intersecting storyline: the plight of Samar, a queer Palestinian woman in Jordan, and a woman in Gaza who she met through a social media post. This woman, who became Samar’s “fixer” to uncover the story of the sect (so that Samar could study and work abroad and be with her girlfriend), was one of the faces behind so many social media posts by Palestinians in Gaza who could only rely on donations to survive. The dialogue between Samar and this woman reflects the outsider’s perspectives about the forming of the sect. The woman delivered brutal truth, while Samar was faced with moral dilemma when choosing a way to tell the story about the sect.

ALT Interestingly, Samar, at times, showed the typical liberal “both sides” perspective. Even when she finally talked to a woman in Gaza, she still insisted on keeping this perspective. The woman, who actually lived amidst devastation, delivered the uncomfortable brutal truth. Samar’s moral dilemma rooted in the face of raw humanity the woman showed and Samar’s deep urge to feel accepted in her new life in the West as a queer woman. Yet, her Palestinian lineage made her question the demand for more palatable “curation of suffering.” Quote: They are slowly turning the city into a grave. They say we are terrorists because we defend ourselves. How else are we supposed to stand up to them? I went to school too; I read about people who fought for freedom. They killed civilians too, but today they are called heroes or partisans, not terrorists. Why? Because they won. (ch. 5)

ALT “Perfect victims” and the critique of pity. It’s hard not to connect The Last Prophet of Palestine with Mohammed El-Kurd’s Perfect Victims and the Politics of Appeal. El-Kurd deconstructs how Palestinians are subjected to impossible moral standards before their basic rights are validated by liberal observers. The structure of The Last Prophet of Palestine serves as a narrative case study of El-Kurd’s thesis. Samar knew European grant boards or readers will reject a story about flawed, angry men forming an erratic sect in the rubble. She felt compelled to rewrite them into sanitized, saintly victims.

ALT El-Kurd described pity as oppression because it is often conditional. Pity requires the victim to remain helpless and passive. The moment a victim exhibits anger, imperfection, or political agency, pity is revoked, and the violence inflicted on them is framed as "justified." Samar’s desire to write a "heroic angle" caters to this dynamic. She offered a digestible fable that allows readers to perform empathy without having to confront the uncomfortable, chaotic reality created by ongoing occupation. Al-Ahmad's portrayal of Ali and the apostles rejected this “pity”. By showing men who are flawed and hypocritical, the novel insists that humanity and the right to exist do not require moral perfection. Palestinians deserve life and liberation not because they are saints, but because they are human.

ALT Like in Samya H’s memoir Hijab Butch Blues, djinn became the symbolic embodiment of queer existence, viewed as both source of suspicion and fascination. Sara Haque’s entry, A fever, a djinn, and the collectibles of grief, describes her queer kinship with her grandmother because of the grandmother’s personal way in embracing Islam and the existence of djinn. Through evocative descriptions of memories related to her grandmother, Sara describes how various alternative historical traditions of Islam offer radical acceptance toward queerness that cannot be easily categorized by mainstream narrative. Quote: I wonder if it was the beguiling rope of loneliness that wrapped around the djinn’s ephemeral being, and around my neck. The ropes out of which dadi must have made necklaces of pearl--decorative, even if they bore her down. (page 59)

ALT Interpreting existence through queer lens. Some works in this book might not be explicit in their queer depiction, but they interpreted queerness as a lens used to see the world. Being queer means living in a world that often doesn’t have us in mind, and it manifests in the smallest things. For example, in Dog Days by Kaleemullah Bashir, a vignette of a busy day (waiting in line at a crowded bank) describes a type of modern alienation that reflect the daily experiences of many queer people: feeling alone in a crowd. Quote: Nothing in this city ever made sense to Sadaf. And she had always engaged with the chaotic narratives of the city only as a receiver. This chaos always came with a promise of purpose and some sense of reason, but it always lacked a solid ground. (page 46)

ALT Another distinctive theme of alienation that you can see using queer lens is in Nangsal by Dia Yonzon. Her character, Nyima, was a member of the indigenous Tamang ethnic group in Nepal who prepared to depart to the U.S. She recalled the bitter memory of her father who left to become a monk, and things that she had lost or traded for being able to go abroad. I found the story to be more resonant the moment you read the queer subtext: from the unclear reason behind her father’s sudden decision, to the fact that the title was in Tamang language, which is being threatened by the dominance of Nepali language. Nyima’s worry of going to the U.S. despite the opportunity also reflected the fear of losing one’s root, something experienced by many queer people who are forced to slice off their identities to be accepted.

ALT Books like this always remind me of the words of Billy-Ray Belcourt, a First Nation queer writer from the Driftpile Cree Nation: Indigenous existence is basically queer in nature. Queerness and indigenous existence don’t and shouldn’t oppose each other because both shared a similarity: they challenge the dominant narrative and oppressive status quo. For me, this also reflects something that I always repeat: no one “owns” queerness. LGBTQIA+ people should not be forced to slice off their identities (their culture, their root, their connection to the land, their history, their faith if they embrace it) just to be accepted or be seen as less complicated by the more dominant narrative.

ALT This Way Out by Tufayel Ahmed. Tufayel Ahmed drew from his own experiences as a gay man coming out to his strict Bangladeshi Muslim family when writing this novel. When Amar announced his upcoming marriage with his boyfriend on his family’s WhatsApp group, chaos ensued. Suddenly, Amar questioned everything he knew about his culture, his family, and even his own relationship as he seek hope without sacrificing his true love and family bond.

ALT Funny Boy by Shyam Selvadurai. Shyam Selvadurai was inspired by his experience growing up during Sinhala-Tamil tensions in Sri Lanka. The novel followed Arjie, a boy who grew up in a wealthy family in Sri Lanka, as he explored his budding sexuality and gay identity alongside understanding about the conflict between Sinhalese and Tamil people, which culminated in the 1983 anti-Tamil pogrom known as “The Black July.”

ALT The Carpet Weaver by Nemat Sadat. Nemat Sadat took the backdrop of 1977 Afghanistan for the story of Kanishka, the son of a carpet seller, who discovered his queerness when frequenting the Maoist gatherings at the bathhouse with his father. He fell in love with another boy, Maihan, with whom he shared his first kiss. When the civil war and religious fundamentalism separated them, Kanishka began a long journey for safety with the hope for meeting Maihan again.