"Fire in Every Direction": Palestinian Author Tareq Baconi on Gaza, Zionism & Embracing Queerness

Palestinian writer Tareq Baconi joins us to discuss his new memoir, Fire in Every Direction, a chronicle of his political and queer coming of age growing up between Amman and Beirut as the grandson of refugees from Jerusalem and Haifa. While "LGBTQ+ labels have also been used by the West as part of empire," with colonial projects seeking to portray Native populations as backward and in need of saving, "there's a beautiful effort and movement among queer communities in the region to reclaim that language," says Baconi. "I identify as a queer man today as part of a political project. It's not just a sexual identity. It expands beyond that and rejects Zionism and rejects authoritarianism, and that's part of my queerness."

Baconi also comments on the so-called ceasefire agreement in Gaza and the election of Zohran Mamdani in New York City. "Palestinians are the ones that have to govern Palestinian territory, not this international force that comes in that takes any kind of sovereignty or agency away from the Palestinians," he says.