profesor by faisal tehrani
this blog is in need of an update. i have been slacking off so updating a bit more regularly would be in order.
i don't read a lot of bm books these days. i used to adore them when i was younger, mostly because my parents have a huge collection of fiction in bm from the 70s and 80s, with people like fatimah busu, siti zaleha ismail, zurinah hassan, azizi hj. abdullah and baharuddin kahar writing. it was raw and penetrating. i don't know if that is the case, it's great that there are a lot more publishers specializing in bm, even though i have heard reports from fellow readers that editing leaves a lot to be desired.
suffice to say, there are lots of room for improvement. which is ok. bm is a different language, it sears the psyche in ways english couldn't, of course it takes skill to do that.
now, about profesor by faisal tehrani.
i was initially skeptical. i'm a gay woman, so it is interesting to me which route a heterosexual male write would take in order to represent homosexual characters - would he speak for them or of them? tehrani wants to tell a story about human rights on a granular level, as lived by his lesbian characters. i loved it that he tried to tackle issues like religious dogmatism, sexism, patriarchy, feudalism and cultural relativism. it's so refreshing, after all this years, to read a bm novel that is not about promoting rape culture. having said that, i think tehrani needs to do something about quoting long academic passages and turn it into something that flows with the narrative.
i don't read a lot of bm books these days. i used to adore them when i was younger, mostly because my parents have a huge collection of fiction in bm from the 70s and 80s, with people like fatimah busu, siti zaleha ismail, zurinah hassan, azizi hj. abdullah and baharuddin kahar writing. it was raw and penetrating. i don't know if that is the case, it's great that there are a lot more publishers specializing in bm, even though i have heard reports from fellow readers that editing leaves a lot to be desired.
suffice to say, there are lots of room for improvement. which is ok. bm is a different language, it sears the psyche in ways english couldn't, of course it takes skill to do that.
now, about profesor by faisal tehrani.
i was initially skeptical. i'm a gay woman, so it is interesting to me which route a heterosexual male write would take in order to represent homosexual characters - would he speak for them or of them? tehrani wants to tell a story about human rights on a granular level, as lived by his lesbian characters. i loved it that he tried to tackle issues like religious dogmatism, sexism, patriarchy, feudalism and cultural relativism. it's so refreshing, after all this years, to read a bm novel that is not about promoting rape culture. having said that, i think tehrani needs to do something about quoting long academic passages and turn it into something that flows with the narrative.
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