Queer Literature

Friendship as Social Justice Activism examines unconventional forms of kinship as catalysts for change

How do people who meet as part of movements navigate desire, love and heartbreak? Friendship as Social Justice Activism: Critical Solidarities in a Global Perspective offers similar conversations.

The Witch Boy reinforces Wiccan literature as a vital source of spiritual nourishment for queer readers

It is time for us to be more intentional about creating our futures; whether we identify as witches or not, there are things we could learn from them.

Sara Farizan reflects on queer love and law in Iranian society, in If You Could Be Mine

In If You Could Be Mine, Iranian-American writer Sara Farizan looks at her own cultural milieu which forbade and criminalised homosexuality.

In reading Vikram Kolmannskog's Lord of the Senses, examining the possibility, predicament of being queer and Hindu

Lord of the Senses is an unputdownable collection of short stories written by Vikram Kolmannskog and published by the London-based Team Angelica.

Out of Line and Offline: Personal meets political in Pawan Dhall's book about people outside mainstream Indian queer narrative

In Out of Line and Offline, Pawan Dhall is interested in three main questions: How do things appear in retrospect more than 25 years into the queer movements of eastern India? Where or in what state are the people reached out to in the 1990s and later? What bearing do the activisms of the 1990s and early 2000s have on the lives of those individuals today?

None of the Above's compassionate telling of an intersex individual's story trumps its author's cis privilege

IW Gregorio’s book None of the Above (2015) is a brilliant example of an author writing about a community that she is not a part of. The story is so engrossing that you would not want to put the book down, and follows its protagonist Kristin Lattimer, an intersex person, whose life unfolds in this book for young-adults.

Thom Gunn's The Man with Night Sweats makes space for vulnerability while discussing love, grief ⁠— and loss

The Man with Night Sweats by Thom Gunn is often described as a book about the AIDS epidemic, which is quite reductive; it is about friendship, love, death, loss, grief, memories, and so much more. In his poems, there is no pandering to a vicarious heteronormative gaze, but rather a celebration of of seeing, feeling and devouring each other.

Amrou Al-Kadhi's Unicorn: The Memoir of a Muslim Drag Queen is the searing autobiography the community needs

Amrou Al-Kadhi's Unicorn: The Memoir of a Muslim Drag Queen is about their journey through a traumatic childhood with parents who refused to acknowledge their homosexuality, their valiant attempts to pass off as British by seeking an elite college education, and their discovery of the transformative power of drag while at university.

How Nishit Saran's Lurkings, a posthumous compilation of his writings, offered a new vocabulary for queer experiences

Lurkings is a collection of the articles gay rights activist and filmmaker Nishit Saran wrote for various publications. These were compiled posthumously and published in 2008 by his parents Minna and Raj, who set up the Nishit Saran Foundation after they lost their beloved son, then aged 25, in a car accident.

Clare Croft's Queer Dance: Meanings and Makings is a vital engagement with intersectionality

Every subsequent reading of Queer Dance: Meanings and Makings by dance theorist and curator Clare Croft gives me more than the previous one. | Chintan Girish Modi writes in this week's #QueerBookshelf