18/Guapa, Marco and living Fernando Pessoa’s dreamlife in Lisbon (with Saleem Haddad)

This is a conversation with writer Saleem Haddad, author of the novel Guapa and the director of the short film Marco, now available for free online.

We spoke about both Guapa and Marco as well as his contribution to the science fiction anthology Palestine+100. We also spoke about his connection to Fernando Pessoa’s the Book of Disquiet while living in Pessoa’s city, Lisbon. We spoke about identity and its relationship to languages, the circumstances around his move to Lisbon  from London, his struggle with his own Queer Arab identity and our complicated relationship to what we call ‘home’. Saleem also asked me about my passion for James Baldwin which I was happy to answer.

Quick disclaimer: our conversation on Marco contains spoilers so I’d  urge you all to first watch it on YouTube. It’s around 20 minutes long  and I promise you that you’ll enjoy it. Another disclaimer is that the  Pessoa essay that Saleem wrote contains mention of suicide so please  take your mindset into consideration when reading it, which you  definitely also should!

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• Marco on Youtube (21:58)
• Saleem Haddad’s interview on BBC Arabic
• Saleem’s essay on Fernando Pessoa
• The 2020 ‘The Amazing James Baldwin‘ course
• James Baldwin’s interview in Amsterdam
• My review of Palestine+100 which includes Saleem’s short story