Guest Privileges: Queer Lives and Finding Home in the Middle East

An intimate and illuminating account of queer lives and migration, homemaking and community in the Gulf, from a brilliant new voice in narrative non-fiction **LONGLISTED FOR THE RSL ONDAATJE PRIZE** 'An eye-opening tour de force' ALEX ESPINOZA 'Exhilarating' SUSAN ORLEAN 'Tender and insightful' MOHAMED TONSY Upon moving to the Gulf States – where penalties for queer acts include deportation, imprisonment, torture and death – Gaar Adams wants to understand why LGBTQ+ migrants might choose to live amid such peril. He begins riskily gathering interviews outside the tightly controlled state media, leading with what he thinks is a simple question: Isn't it harder for you to make a life here? But as unforgettable residents share a kaleidoscope of stories – from uproarious Filipino salon workers throwing secret drag parties to a courageous Pakistani farmhand who helps his compatriots smuggle themselves across borders – deeper questions and fault lines begin to emerge alongside the halting steps into Gaar’s own clandestine relationship. Weaving intimate and illuminating memoir with unprecedented reportage, Guest Privileges is a decade-long journey of dislocation – not just through the Gulf States, but into the very nature of home, belonging and how we form a life and community. 'Vividly reported and luminously reflective' NADIA OWUSU 'I was captivated and carried' ADAM ZMITH ‘Adams gives a voice to a queer community we hear much about, but little from…offering hope in a world witnessing the concerted rollback of queer rights' HUGO GREENHALGH

About the Author :
Gaar Adams is an American writer whose work has been published in the Atlantic, Foreign Policy, Rolling Stone, Al Jazeera, Slate and VICE. He lives in Brixton and is a fellow of London Library Emerging Writer programme. Guest Privileges is his first book.

Review :
Beautifully written, meticulously researched, and deeply felt, Guest Privileges is an exhilarating journey through unfamiliar terrain. It is a story of queerness in the context of the Middle East, but it will be instantly recognizable to anyone who has yearned to feel at home. A charming exploration of queer life in the Gulf, filled with years of research, intimate interviews, and personal reflection. Guest Privileges is clear, thoughtful, tender writing about the multi dimensions of places and people. I was captivated and carried. An eye-opening tour de force account skilfully examining how queer people not only build community under threats of imprisonment and death, they live and celebrate and love. An important and necessary contribution to queer literature and an essential one. A tender and insightful book that weaves memoir into a chronicle of queer lives in the Gulf States. Gaar’s writing recognises that the West doesn’t get to dictate what queerness looks like, and illustrates with nuance how queer migrant communities in the Gulf States subvert expectations of what it means to find your home elsewhere.' Guest Privileges is a vividly reported and luminously reflective inquiry into how queer people love, care for, and sustain one another in the face of oppression, violence, and erasure. Adams’ open-heartedness and willingness to challenge his assumptions create layers of nuance and complexity. This book will stay with me for a long time. A magisterial mixture of analysis, commentary and personal travelogue, Gaar Adams gives a voice to a queer community we hear much about, but little from. Yet LGBTQ+ life under the threat of jail - and worse - survives and thrives, offering hope in a world witnessing the concerted rollback of queer rights. Unforgettable and remarkable stories… Guest Privileges is a book about the making and making of home, it is about lives unfolding in the danger, lived in secrecy A mesmerising succession of intimate disclosures and vivid conversations