The Thirty Names of Night
Book description
Winner of the Lambda Literary Award for Transgender Fiction
Winner of the ALA Stonewall Book Award—Barbara Gittings Literature Award
Named Best Book of the Year by Bustle
Named Most Anticipated Book of the Year by The Millions, Electric Literature, and HuffPost
From the award-winning author of The Map of Salt…
Why read it?
2 authors picked The Thirty Names of Night as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?
At its core, this book is a mystery: a trans Syrian-American’s journey to find out what happened to his mother and how she was connected to an artist whose journal he finds.
But what I loved most about this book is the meditations on gender, on spirituality, and on birds. This book is an ornithologist’s dream.
From Lamya's list on queer and trans Muslim experiences.
The main character is a painter experiencing a creative block after the death of his mother in a suspicious fire. The book is mainly about heritage, legacy, family relationships, and the hidden histories of trans and queer people in the Syrian American community – the protagonist is a trans man of Syrian heritage. More than that, it explores how making art can help a person process these different aspects of existence, and connect people through generations. These themes resonate across culture and identity. Bonus points for absolutely gorgeous prose, and the magic of birds.
From Khan's list on how art is more than art.
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