Brody's Scribbles... In the World of Boys

By Brody Levesque (Washington DC) Mar 2 | Fi El Balad El Waled (In the World of Boys) is a new Egyptian book on a daring topic — 20-year-old college student Assam’s desire to live an openly gay life in Cairo, written by a straight, married 27-year-old secular Muslim journalist named Mostafa Fathi.

 Mostafa Fathi  Photo By Michael T. Luongo

The author says of the book;

"It is about one guy, named Assam. He lives in Cairo, and he dreams of inner peace. He is an Egyptian and gay. I write about the story from when he was a kid, living with his mother and father, here in Cairo. In high school he met someone and soon discovered he was gay, and he started to look for someone to love him. Assam is afraid ... all the time he is thinking, Am I right or am I wrong? Is it right to be gay, or do I have to go to someone to make me a woman-loving man? He reads a lot about homosexuality, and he found himself a normal man. I’m not “shaz”' (a pervert), he says to himself. He is 20, he is a student. And his friend in the story, his name is Mohammed, he left his work, because he is gay, so they released him from the place. He also met someone who is gay, and he discovers, when he is in his house, he is a sheik, a Muslim religious man."

In an interview with Advocate.com Senior Lifestyle Writer Michael T. Luongo, Fathi describes the difficulty in getting his book to press: 

"I went to a publishing house, and after one week they called me and they refused the book. They told me the book is a good book and everyone will like your style in writing. But the idea, it’s not accepted. I went to another book publishing place; they also refused it. I went to a third one and they refused it. So I met with someone, he is a journalist, and I told him, "I have a book — it’s called The World of Boys. But they all refused it." He wrote in his newspaper about my idea. Amani Al Tunsi, she is a friend from a long time ago, we worked together before, she read about this and she called me and said, "I want to publish your book. I want to start a publishing house. I chose the name of the publishing house — Shabab Books — it is my idea [Shabab means "young men" in Arabic] And the first book from Shabab Books will be The World of Boys." And so we publish the book, and it is a best seller in all the bookstores in Egypt."

For the complete interview please visit Advocate.com.