Guest Privileges

Queer Lives and Finding Home in the Middle East

Gaar Adams

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Hardback

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English

Harvill Secker
28 March 2024

Autobiography: arts & entertainment; Autobiography: literary; Memoirs; Gay & Lesbian studies; Travel writing

An intimate and illuminating account of queer lives and migration, homemaking and community in the Gulf, from a brilliant new voice in narrative non-fiction

Upon moving to the Gulf States - where penalties for queer acts include deportation, imprisonment, torture and death - Gaar Adams wants to understand why LGBTQ+ migrants might choose to live amid such peril. From the UAE to Bahrain and Oman to Saudi Arabia - a region where four out of five residents are noncitizens - he begins riskily gathering interviews outside the tightly controlled state media, leading with what he thinks is a simple question-

Isn't it harder for you to make a life here?

But as unforgettable residents share a kaleidoscope of stories - from uproarious Filipino salon workers throwing secret drag parties to a courageous Pakistani farmhand helping his compatriots smuggle themselves across borders - cracks emerge in the framing of his enquiry, revealing disquieting assumptions about the motivations, places and identities of others.

As Gaar begins his own clandestine queer relationship, fault lines and deeper questions begin to emerge- about what we perpetuate and refuse to examine, and how we balance opportunity, risk, subversion and assimilation.

Weaving revealing memoir with unprecedented reportage, Guest Privileges is a decade-long journey of dislocation not just through the Gulf States - one of the most maligned and misunderstood regions in the world - but into the very nature of home, belonging and how we form a life and community.

By: Gaar Adams
Imprint: Harvill Secker
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions: Height: 218mm, Width: 144mm, Spine: 32mm
Weight: 420g
ISBN: 9781787303706
ISBN 10: 1787303705
Pages: 304
Publication Date: 28 March 2024
Audience: General/trade , College/higher education , Professional and scholarly , ELT Advanced , Primary
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active

Gaar Adams is an American writer whose work has been published in the Atlantic, Foreign Policy, Rolling Stone, Al Jazeera, Slate and VICE. He lives in Brixton and is a fellow of London Library Emerging Writer programme. Guest Privileges is his first book.

Reviews for Guest Privileges: Queer Lives and Finding Home in the Middle East

Gaar Adams has written a charming exploration of queer life in the Gulf, filled with years of research, intimate interviews, and personal reflection. Guest Privileges is clear, thoughtful, tender writing about the multi dimensions of places and people. I was captivated and carried. -- Adam Zmith, author of Deep Sniff An eye-opening tour de force account skilfully examining how queer people not only build community under threats of imprisonment and death, they live and celebrate and love. An important and necessary contribution to queer literature and an essential one.