Eli Tareq El Bechelany-Lynch & M Bazeed

media release: A Room of One's Own is excited to host editor Eli Tareq El Bechelany-Lynch and contributor M Bazeed for the release of their anthology El Ghourabaa: A Queer and Trans Collection of Oddities. The authors will be in conversation with Room's very own Fawzy Taylor!

This is an in-person event at A Room of One's Own.  

About the book

Seeking uncanny, fun, experimental, creepy, sarcastic, playful, vulgar, inventive, sexual, weird, sweet, and evocative works, editors Samia Marshy and Eli Tareq El Bechelany-Lynch set out to collect Arab and Arabophone queer writing. The result is an anthology brimming with gems by emerging and established writers and an homage to the lineages and complexities of queer Arab life. Multi-genre, multi-generational, and global, El Ghourabaa is an enigma, a delight, and a contribution to an ongoing conversation and creative outpouring.

In addition to Marshy and El Bechelany-Lynch, contributors include: Etel Adnan, Rabih Alameddine, Joe Kadi, Marlin M. Jenkins, Leila Marshy, Trish Salah, Olivia Tapiero, Nour Symon, Yehia Anas Sabaa, Nofel, Hoda Adra, Ralph Haddad, Seif Siddiq, Karim Kattan, Andrea Abi-Karam, Bazeed, George Abraham, Sarah O’Neal, Micaela Kaibni Raen, Nour Kamel, Ahimsa Timoteo Bodhrán, Naja Kassir, and Barrak Alzaid. Plus a foreword by Sherine Elbanhawy.

Eli Tareq El Bechelany-Lynch is a writer and translator living in Tio’tia:ke. Their book, knot body, was published by Metatron Press in 2020, and their second book, The Good Arabs, published by Metonymy Press in 2021, was granted the honorary mention for poetry by the Arab American Book Awards and won the Grand Prix du Livre de Montréal. Their translation of Gabrielle Boulianne-Tremblay’s La fille d’elle-même was published April 2023, and was longlisted for the Dublin Literary Award. They are also an acquisitions editor at Metonymy Press.

Fawzy Taylor is a zine maker and bookseller in Madison, WI. They are the social media manager at A Room of One's Own, where they fill the book store with trans joy, abolitionist love, and bright colors!