Guest Privileges by Gaar Adams

£10.99
Available
Product Ref. (e.g. ISBN, SKU)
9781529933604
Published:
20 Mar 2025
Format:
Paperback
Number of pages:
304 pages
Dimensions:
198x129x35mm
Weight:
0.500kgs
Author:
Blending reportage, memoir and new travel writing, 'Guest Privileges' is about queer lives and subcultures in the Gulf and the Middle East, specifically among the region's many global migrant communities. Pre- and misconceptions swirl around the region, and Gaar Adams sets out to try and answer why many people, including himself, choose to make a home somewhere that could cause them so much risk, personally and politically.

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

'An eye-opening tour de force' ALEX ESPINOZA
'Exhilarating' SUSAN ORLEAN
'Tender and insightful' MOHAMED TONSY

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. 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 who helps his compatriots smuggle themselves across borders - deeper questions and fault lines begin to emerge alongside the halting steps into Gaar's own clandestine relationship.

Weaving intimate and illuminating memoir with unprecedented reportage, Guest Privileges is a decade-long journey of dislocation - not just through the Gulf States, but into the very nature of home, belonging and how we form a life and community.

'Vividly reported and luminously reflective' NADIA OWUSU
'I was captivated and carried' ADAM ZMITH
'Adams gives a voice to a queer community we hear much about, but little from…offering hope in a world witnessing the concerted rollback of queer rights' HUGO GREENHALGH

About the Author: 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.

More Information
Number of pages 304

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