Double Detroit Book Launch

Please join Metonymy Press authors H. Felix Chau Bradley and Eli Tareq El Bechelany-Lynch for the double launch of their latest books. The two will be joined by guest readers Pwaangulongii Dauod & George Abraham.

PERSONAL ATTENTION ROLEPLAY

Une jeune gymnaste s’éprend d’une coéquipière plus âgée et plus talentueuse, tout en devant composer avec sa mère débordée. Une vingtenaire qui vient de découvrir son identité queer tente de gérer deux relations intimes : une idylle anarchiste et une liaison avec un bénéficiaire de repas à domicile atypique. La tournée d’été d’un groupe de métal queer dérape dans la chaleur moite du nord-est des États-Unis. Une auteure de listicles codépendante développe une obsession pour une chaîne japonaise d’ASMR.

Les récits de Personal Attention Roleplay sont animées par la solitude queer, la confusion métissée, le désespoir capitaliste et les pièges de l’intimité. Ayant lieu à Montréal, Toronto et ailleurs, ils mettent en scène des jeunes personnes asiatiques dans leur quête de se voir reflétées – dans leur environnement, chez les autres et en ligne. Le langage précis de Chau Bradley et son exploration de nos motivations les plus troublantes se distinguent dans ce premier ouvrage humoristique et ironique, dont les histoires évoquent l’inhabituel tout en demeurant ancrées dans le quotidien.

*Shortlisted for the 2021 TWUC Danuta Gleed Literary Award and the eighth annual Kobo Emerging Writer Prize.*

THE GOOD ARABS

This collection of poetry swings from post-explosion Beirut to a Parc-Extension balcony in summer–with verse and prose poems that ground the reader in place, language, and the body. Peeling and rinsing radishes. Dancing as a pre-teen to Nancy Ajram. Being drenched in stares on the city bus. The collection is an interlocking and rich offering of the speaker’s communities, geographical surroundings both expansive and precise, and family both biological and chosen.

The Good Arabs nous invite à réfléchir aux cycles et aux schémas répétitifs qui caractérisent nos vies et celles de nos nations brisées. Cette œuvre inédite cartographie les identités arabe et trans à travers l’immensité de l’expérience ressentie dans un même corps, le chagrin des personnes déçues par leur pays, et la crise des ordures au Liban. En fin de compte, elle nous montre comment nous pouvons aimer malgré la consternation, adorer l’âcreté et la laideur, et vivre notre multiplicité à travers les espaces.

**Honorable Mention for the 2022 Arab American Book Award and Jury Selection for the Grand Prix du livre de Montreal**

ABOUT THE AUTHORS:

H. Felix Chau Bradley is a writer and musician living in Tiohtià:ke (Montreal). They are the author of Automatic Object Lessons, a poetry chapbook, the Fiction Editor for This Magazineet de Strange Futures, un club de lecture de littérature imaginaire. Personal Attention Roleplay is their first book. They are also an acquisitions editor at Metonymy Press.

Eli Tareq El Bechelany-Lynch is a writer living in Tiohtià:ke. Their work has appeared in The Best Canadian Poetry 2018 anthology, The New Quarterly, Arc Poetry Magazine, and elsewhere. They were longlisted for the CBC poetry prize in 2019. Their book, knot body (2020), published by Metatron Press, was shortlisted for the QWF Concordia First Book Award, and their second book, The Good Arabs, was published by Metonymy Press in September 2021. They are the non-fiction editor at The Puritan. They are also an acquisitions editor at Metonymy Press.

ABOUT THE GUEST READERS:

George Abraham (they/هو) is a Palestinian American poet. Their debut poetry collection Birthright (Button Poetry, 2020) won the Arab American Book Award and was a Lambda Literary Award finalist. They are a board member for the Radius of Arab American Writers, and a recipient of fellowships from Kundiman, The Arab American National Museum, Sewanee Writers’ Conference, National Performance Network, and more. They are currently co-editing a Palestinian global anglophone poetry anthology with Noor Hindi (Haymarket Books, 2024) and are a Litowitz MFA+MA student at Northwestern University.

Pwaangulongii Dauod is a Nigerian writer whose essay, “Africa’s Future Has No Space for Stupid Black Men” (Granta), sparked a national conversation about queer issues in Nigeria and led to threats to his life. He is an Artist Protection Fund Fellow in residence at Wayne State University’s Department of English and City of Asylum/Detroit. His writing has appeared in Granta, LitHub, Johannesburg Review of Books, and elsewhere. He studied with celebrated authors Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and Binyavanga Wainaina and holds an MFA from University of Virginia. He is the recipient of a MacDowell Fellowship, an O’Brien Fellowship at the McGill Centre for Human Rights and Legal Pluralism, and a Gerald Kraak Award. He was a finalist for the Graywolf Press Nonfiction Manuscript Prize and Woke Africa Magazine named him One of the Best African Writers of the New Generation.

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27th Letter Books is located at 3546 Michigan Avenue in Detroit. For more info about the venue, visit 27thletterbooks.com. Attendees are asked to wear masks at the event.