The Diesel

Fiction. Middle Eastern Studies. LGBT Studies. Translated from the Arabic by William M. Hutchins. In a small Arab community, one accustomed to ancestral attitudes and social constraints, a new world of radical sexual strength is evolving in secret, driven by a long dormant demon: THE DIESEL. Nearly two decades before the rest of the world ever envisioned an Arab Spring, Emirati author Thani Al-Suwaidi saw a cultural shift on the horizon. Critically shunned when it was...
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Fiction. Middle Eastern Studies. LGBT Studies. Translated from the Arabic by William M. Hutchins. In a small Arab community, one accustomed to ancestral attitudes and social constraints, a new world of radical sexual strength is evolving in secret, driven by a long dormant demon: THE DIESEL.

Nearly two decades before the rest of the world ever envisioned an Arab Spring, Emirati author Thani Al-Suwaidi saw a cultural shift on the horizon. Critically shunned when it was first published in 1994, his story is now a revelation for the modern world-a stream-of-consciousness dissection of our orthodox past and the perilous future we can no longer prevent.

The power of petroleum may be greater than any society could have ever imagined, especially in the Middle Eastern communities where it's actually produced. Amongst contrasting Arab cultures, characters and mystical creatures, THE DIESEL challenges its inhabitants to consider who they are and what they desire. This is a force that ultimately segregates fathers and sons, villages and empires, love and lust. And it's been lingering beneath the soil since the world began.

As Al-Suwaidi bluntly begins, "I've been here since I was born and don't have much longer to live." In the world of THE DIESEL, the length of a life isn't nearly as important as how it's lived.

Cover and book design by John Gall.