mena – Page 6 – The Queer Arabs

We had a fantastic convo with Egyptian playwright Adam Elsayigh! Adam came to Mark for Redaction in NY, which is where we first met him. It was so nice to get to talk with him more.
Adam has been creating plays that give voice to the issues that queer Egyptians have faced. During this episode, we talked about the importance of representation of SWANA artists, about the reactions that different audiences have had to his play “Drowning in Cairo”, what elements Adam feels are vital to keep in mind when writing and presenting his plays, and much more!

To watch a reading of “Drowning in Cairo”, go to https://drive.google.com/open?id=1aQAFsPU6WjJKsejKd4TiORrJzAvO-pHS

To contact Adam, you can reach out to him through email or Facebook: [email protected], https://www.facebook.com/adamashraf97

The photos below are of:

Adam, shots from the reading of his play, the Mashrou Leila concert that we mentioned during the episode, & a couple of photos of the Queen Boat incident.

Egyptian security flank 52 suspected homosexual men accused of sexual immorality as they arrive at a Cairo court November 14, 2001. The court on Wednesday sentenced a man to five years in jail and 22 to up to three years on charges which included “practising sexual immorality”, a local euphemism for homosexuality, a court source said. Twenty-nine men were acquitted in the trial which has been condemned as unfair by international groups.

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We are so excited for this episode! We guarantee you’ll love getting to know Andrea through this. We’ll give you all a heads up when their book is available (set to come out Jan. 2019)!

Andrea Abi-Karam is an arab-american genderqueer punk poet-performer cyborg,
writing on the art of killing bros, the intricacies of cyborg bodies, trauma & delayed
healing. Their chapbook, THE AFTERMATH (Commune Editions, 2016), attempts to
queer Fanon’s vision of how poetry fails to inspire revolution. Simone White selected
Andrea’s second assemblage Villainy for forthcoming publication with Les Figues. They
toured with Sister Spit March 2018 & are hype to live in New York.
EXTRATRANSMISSION (Kelsey Street Press, Jan. 2019) is their first book.

Email: [email protected]

Website: andreaak.com

Instagram: @wolf_hour

Twitter: @wolf_hour [extra_TRANS_mission]

photo credit: Lix Z