Join us to discuss the role and representation of queerness in Arab and SWANA (South-West Asia and North Africa) literature in storytelling. How is language a force for liberation and/or colonialism? How are diasporic Queer communities using storytelling for community-building and reclamation How can we challenge queerphobia, islamophobia, and neocolonialism through storytelling, and how these forces intersect? How can we uplift and amplify our Queer SWANA community members? Join speakers Elias Jahshan, Dr. Sophie Chamas, and Drew Demetry to discuss just some of these questions, alongside discussion on their groundbreaking work as storytellers, scholars, and community-builders 
This event is in partnership with Tagore's Salon, a new London-based initiative trying to create dialogue & discussion on translated, Global, and underrepresented literatures. Follow us on Instagram @TagoresSalon.Ldn! If you have trouble affording a ticket, DM us on Instagram and we will help!
Featuring:
Andrew Demetry is a cultural curator dedicated to amplifying diasporoic Queer SWANA voices. As the founder of NAFS, they created a platform that goes beyond showcasing talent—it fosters community, resilience, and healing. Recognising the need for more than just events, Andrew expanded NAFS into a space for meaningful connection through book clubs, workshops, exhibitions, and musical performances. NAFS remains responsive to the evolving needs of the diaspora, creating opportunities for self-expression, solidarity, and collective care.
Dr. Sophie Chamas is a senior lecturer in gender studies at SOAS, University of London. Their research sits at the intersection of feminist and queer political theory, Middle East studies, social movement studies, and cultural studies. Overall, their work explores the life, death, and afterlife of the radical political imagination in the Middle East and its diaspora.
They have written about the evolving nature of queerphobia as a means of authorising state power in the Middle East; queer Arab re-imaginings of both queerness and Arabness and the potentiality of their dialectical relationship; the effects of ghosts and hauntings from bygone moments of political possibility on the present and future of Middle East-related social movements; and the role that affect and sociality play in the reproduction of social movements in the region and its diaspora. All of their research is informed by what anthropologist Hirokazu Miyazaki calls ‘hope as method’ – a dedication to exploring what is not yet rather than what has already become.
Elias Jahshan is a Palestinian-Lebanese journalist and writer. He is the editor of groundbreaking This Arab is Queer: An Anthology by LGBTQ+ Arab Writers (Saqi Books; 2022), which was a finalist in the 2023 Lambda Literary Awards in the USA, and shortlisted for the 2023 Bread & Roses Award in the UK. His short memoirs ‘Coming Out Palestinian’ was anthologised in Arab, Australian, Other: Stories on Race and Identity (ed. Randa Abdel-Fattah & Sara Saleh; Picador, 2019), while ‘Bittersweet Memories of a Palestinian Knight’ was anthologised in Ask the Night for a Dream: Palestinian Writing From the Diaspora (ed. Susan Muaddi Darraj; Palestine Writes Press, 2024). Elias is also a former editor of Star Observer, Australia’s longest-running queer media outlet, and has been published in The Guardian, Gay Times, The New Arab, Raseef22, Shado Mag, My Kali, and more. Born and raised in Sydney, he now lives in London.