‘Bride of Amman’: On the ‘Sexual Freedoms and Body Rights’ Tour
Jordanian author-blogger Fadi Zaghmout and translator Ruth Ahmedzai Kemp are set to launch the English translation of Zaghmout’s debut in a tour subtitled “Sexual Freedoms and Body Rights in the Middle East”:
It’s an eye-catching subtitle, promising a discussion not just of Zaghmout’s fast-paced first novel, The Brid
e of Amman, but also about sex in Jordan and beyond. Indeed, Zaghmout’s novel is well-suited to a talk about sexual freedoms and body rights: It’s part storytelling, part manifesto, and steeped in a confessional blog culture.
“In the Middle East” overpromises — The Bride of Amman is a book set in middle-class Jordan, not Haifa or Ankara, Sana’a or Cairo or Marrakesh. But it is a forceful discussion about sex and the body in contemporary Amman, and Zaghmout has not shied from using it as a launching-point of discussion about other issues.
As ArabLit has previously discussed, Nadia Muhanna, on her blog, wrote about an interview with Zaghmout on Jordanian TV several months after the book’s release. His interviewer referred to a gay character in the novel as shaz, an offensive term. Zaghmout corrected the presenter, using the term muthley. “By the end of the interview,” Muhanna writes, “the presenter was using ‘LGBT-friendly language.’”
Just as he did an expert job steering the book’s release in Arabic, he will now appear — along with Ahmedzai Kemp –at events in London, Oxford, Bristol, Cheltenham and Brighton. Hopefully he will do just as firm a job at steering audiences away from an oversimplified, Peeping-Tom view of sex and the Other.
In London and Brighton, author and translator will appear with journalist Brian Whitaker, author of Unspeakable Love: Gay and Lesbian Life in the Middle East.
Details of the five events:
The Suffolk Anthology bookshop, Cheltenham – 7pm, Mon 9 November
The Middle East Centre, St. Anthony’s College, Oxford – 5pm, Tuesday 10 November
The Arts House Café, Bristol – 7pm, Wed 11 November
Gay’s the Word bookshop, London, with Brian Whitaker – 7pm, Thurs 12 November
Waterstones, Brighton, with Brian Whitaker – 7.30pm, Fri 13 November
Two reviews:
Two Views of Fadi Zaghmout’s Debut Novel, ‘The Bride of Amman’
October 8, 2015 @ 6:01 pm
Does anyone know if it’s possible to buy a copy of this book in Amman, and if so, where I would look for it? Thanks 🙂
October 10, 2015 @ 9:44 am
Hey, sure you can find it, look for it in book@cafe Jabal Amman or Readers bookshop in Taj mall. They might also have it in virgin megastore in mecca mall. I think there are copies as well in mlabbas store in raindow street.. and if you didn’t find a copy, you can order it online from jamalon.com 🙂
October 12, 2015 @ 8:47 am
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November 2015: Global Arab and Arabic Literary Events Calendar | Arabic Literature (in English)
October 30, 2015 @ 6:33 am
[…] At 7 p.m. at the Suffolk Anthology bookshop. Part of Zaghmout’s “Sexual Freedoms and Body Rights Tour.” More here. […]