review
Queer literature needs to be celebrated all year long, but here’s a quick list of the books I’ve most enjoyed reading in 2022.
The Indian literary world has witnessed promising changes in 2022. First, the translated work was acclaimed like never before. sand gravethe English translation of the Hindi novel Daisy Rockwell Let Samadhi Last year’s winning of the International Booker Prize by Geetanjali Shree was an incredible feat for South Asian literature. It featured hijra characters who were skillfully woven into the story. Second, queerness has flooded literature, especially in mainstream publishing.For example, the Booker Prize-winning novel Seven months of Mari Almeida (Previously chat with the dead 2020) by Shehan Karnatilaka is a second-person story told by a dead queer photojournalist.
The above examples might make it feel like Western recognition was behind their success. , was famous on the subcontinent. Queer literature has to be celebrated throughout his year, but here’s a quick list of the books coming out in 2022 that I most enjoyed reading.
Bulletin
i’m o’neal and i’m gay (Penguin) by Onir, with Irene Dhar Malik small steps on a long journey Akai Padmashari’s Zubaan, as told to Gouri Vijayakumar, is the most candid and personal story published last year about growing up in a time when there was no queerness vocabulary. At the time, neglecting to date was akin to inviting death threats to express your desires in an openly queerphobic setting. We record our lives as they are. Not only do these accounts delve into the multiple issues facing queer people in India, but they also help identify queers in specific regions and explore the general imagining of what queer life is like. It is also a story about how we are different.
narrative nonfiction
Ewan Forbes’ Hidden Case: A Transgender Trial That Threatens to Upend the British Empire (Bloomsbury) Zoë Playdon’s book was a shocking read for me. I wondered what would have happened if Ewan Forbes’ gender reassignment surgery had gotten the world’s attention. Another example of how queer people are subtly disenfranchised and marginalized by select state institutions dedicated to restoring their “pride.”
On the other hand, Maya Sharma’s Queer History Footprints: Life Stories from Gujarat (Yoda Press) does the opposite. It shows how vocally a series of people wanted to be themselves and stand out for who they were. In this book, she chronicles their triumphs and struggles with their voices. Pre-transgender: A new history of gender Kit Hayam’s “(Hachette)” is a unique piece that brings together multiple histories of transness deliberately erased to establish a gender-binary world order. In this book, Kit not only establishes why we need to tell (his) more queer stories, but also explores the curious characters and anomalous behavior we are told. The story was queer-filled, but was dismissed for the same reason.
fiction
From science to literary fiction, some of the best fiction has been published in the last year.Jerry Pinto’s lily education (Speaking Tiger) presents an existential crisis for queer teenagers, after sappho (Pan Macmillan) by Selby Wynn Schwartz celebrated a historic queer feminist figure who championed individual liberty, liberty, and lesbianism under oppressive regimes. A very original work. Unfortunately, the Booker Prize jury didn’t put it on the shortlist.
Neil Patel Tell Me How To Be (Penguin) is a utterly tender novel about queer as much as it is about the twisted mother-son-brother bond South Asians share. machine hood (Hachette) also refused to abide by gender norms in otherworldly settings. .The second novel by Douglas Stewart young mango (Pan McMillan) didn’t reach Booker Dozen, but he was second to none. A heartbreaking tale of a boy who brought us to the terrible consequences of what a queer body had to endure in a highly heteronormative society.
children’s literature
Personally, I found it very rewarding to find books for young readers that celebrated queerness and provided parents with a vocabulary that would help them embrace their non-normative desires. Book.Initially Ritu marries Chandni (Puffin Books), written and illustrated by Ameya Narvankar. A wonderful story about the incorruptible will of an infant who celebrates the marriage of her cousin to her (same-sex) partner in an uncomfortable setting, the second being her Anshumaan Sathe. In this wonderful book, he celebrates the desire of young people to break away from the pink-blue duality associated with growing up and embrace all the colors they want in their lives. Colorful in Anzhou (Insulator).**
Read: Anshuman Sathe’s guide to using non-binary for a gender-neutral world
* Of course, there must have been some notable works published last year, but this list only includes books from I. read last year. This is not only a subjective list, but also an incomplete list.For example, I’m still reading hungry human — I like it so far, but I haven’t finished reading it so I can’t include it.
**I did not influence or commission this work to include Gacy’s books on this list.
