Elias Jahshan presents This Queer Arab Family (Saqi books, 2025), followed by a conversation with Alast Mojtahed Najafi of BRAVE. Through a reading session and a discussion with the audience, the event explores issues of family, gender and sexuality within queer Arab communities. A moment of sharing centred on intimate, political and collective narratives, at the intersection of belonging and identity.
- As part of
- Brussels Ass Book Fair
- Date
- 15:00 — 16:00
- Location
-
Box 2
Elias Jahshan is a Lebanese-Palestinian journalist and writer, and the editor of anthologies This Arab is Queer (2022) and This Queer Arab Family (2025), both published by Saqi Books. This Arab Is Queer was a 2023 Lambda Literary Awards finalist in the United States and shortlisted for the 2023 Bread & Roses Award. Jahshan is the former editor-in-chief of Star Observer, Australia’s longest-running LGBTQIA+ media outlet, and has written for The Guardian, The New Arab, Gay Times, Attitude, Raseef22, Shado Mag, My Kali, among others.
BRAVE asbl is led by SWANA queer, trans, and non-binary people with a vision for communities rooted in care, creativity and self-representation. Following the principle of "nothing about us without us," they use cultural practices to create spaces beyond Orientalist and Islamophobic rhetoric, approaching its communities as complex, creative, and political subjects.