This Queer Arab Family

This Queer Arab Family celebrates the beauty of chosen kin and the everyday acts of care and survival that bind Queer Arabs to each other. This anthology of LGBTQ+ Arab writers edited by Elias Jahshan, features ten LGBTQ+ writers from across the Arab world and diaspora. Elias will be joined by contributors to the book, Abu Leila and Sinin Nakhle, and Maarwan Kabour will chair the discussion.

Elias Jahshan (he/him) is a Palestinian-Lebanese journalist and writer. He is the editor of groundbreaking This Arab is Queer: An Anthology by LGBTQ+ Arab Writers (Saqi Books; 2022), which was a finalist in the 2023 Lambda Literary Awards in the USA, shortlisted for the 2023 Bread & Roses Award in the UK, and has been translated into Italian and French. His short memoirs Coming Out Palestinian was anthologised in Arab, Australian, Other: Stories on Race and Identity (ed. Randa Abdel-Fattah & Sara Saleh; Picador, 2019), while ‘Bittersweet Memories of a Palestinian Knight’ was anthologised in Ask the Night for a Dream: Palestinian Writing From the Diaspora (ed. Susan Muaddi Darraj; Palestine Writes Press, 2024). Elias is also a former editor of Star Observer, Australia’s longest-running LGBTQ+ media outlet, and has been published in The Guardian, Gay Times, The New Arab, Raseef22, Shado Mag, My Kali, and more. Born and raised in Sydney, he now lives in London.

Abu Leila (they/them) is a writer and poet. Abu Leila is a pseudonym. They are currently working on their first novel, which won the Bridport Prize and the London Writers Awards. Their work preserving family histories of anticolonial resistance was shortlisted for the 2024 Wasafiri New Writing Prize and won the Ghassan Kanafani Resistance Arts Prize. A Barbican Young Poet, their poetry has been published in Field Notes on Survival (Bad Betty Press, 2020), recreated as a stone carving at the Bloomsbury Festival and performed in Kolkata, India with the Queer Muslim Project. Abu Leila was born in Lebanon, grew up in Italy and now lives in London. They hope to see the fall of imperialism and capitalism in their lifetime.

Sinin Nakhle (he/him) is a Lebanese researcher, cartoon artist and storyteller whose work lives at the intersection of bodies, platforms and protests. He is the creator of ‘Beirut By Dyke’, a web-comic series about trans intimacy and embodiment. ‘Beirut By Dyke’s’ work has been featured by the likes of CNN, as part of the documentary Sex and Love Around the World, and at universities including the American University of Beirut, SOAS University of London and the University of Pennsylvania, among others. His comics have appeared in Feminist Formations, nY, Glamcut and Stripgids and he has performed at Amsterdam’s Read My World Festival and the International Queer & Migrant Film Festival. His MA thesis on the platformisation of queer space received third place in the LOVA Marjan Rens MA Thesis Award. He is currently a PhD candidate at the University of Amsterdam, funded by funded by the Dutch Research Council (NWO), researching how protesting bodies in Beirut are translated into networks of refusal.

Marwan Kaabour is an independent graphic designer and visual artist from Beirut, currently living and working in London. His work with institutions, brands and individuals in the art and cultural sector ranges from creating visual identities, publication and exhibition design, to marketing campaigns, wayfinding systems and art direction for both print and online projects. Marwan moved to London in 2011 to pursue a master’s degree in Graphic Design from the London College of Communication, then joined Barnbrook – one of the UK’s most formidable and celebrated design agencies – as Designer and later Senior Designer. He founded his own studio in 2020. In 2019, he launched Takweer, a platform that explores queer narratives in Arab history and popular culture.

This Queer Arab Family

Festival & Day Passes

Sign up to our mailing list...