Additional information
by Saleem Haddad (Author)
A gay man in the Middle East wrestles with identity, love, and the upheaval of his country in this "vibrant, wrenching debut novel" (The New Yorker).
Set over the course of twenty-four hours, Guapa follows Rasa, a gay man living in an unnamed Arab country, as he tries to carve out a life for himself in the midst of political and social upheaval. Rasa spends his days translating for Western journalists and pining for the nights when he can sneak his lover, Taymour, into his room. One night Rasa's grandmother, the woman who raised him, catches them in bed together. The following day his best friend, Maj--a fiery activist and drag queen star of the underground bar, Guapa--is arrested by the police. Ashamed to go home and face his grandmother, and reeling from the potential loss of the three most important people in his life, Rasa roams the city's slums and prisons, the lavish weddings of the country's elite, and the bars where outcasts and intellectuals drink to a long-lost revolution. Each new encounter leads him closer to confronting his own identity, as he revisits his childhood and probes the secrets that haunt his family. As Rasa confronts the simultaneous collapse of political hope and his closest personal relationships, he is forced to discover the roots of his alienation and try to re-emerge into a society that may never accept him.Author Biography
Saleem Haddad is a writer, filmmaker, and activist born in Kuwait City to a Lebanese-Palestinian father and an Iraqi-German mother, and educated in Jordan, Canada, and the United Kingdom. His critically acclaimed first novel, Guapa, received the 2017 Polari Prize and a Stonewall Honor. His 2019 directorial debut, Marco, was nominated for the 2019 Iris Prize for Best British Short Film. Haddad has worked as an aid worker with Doctors Without Borders in Yemen, Syria, and Iraq, and currently lives in Lisbon.
Number of Pages: 368
Dimensions: 1.12 x 8.03 x 5.3 IN
Publication Date: August 11, 2026
