Secret of The Sands includes Gay Awareness personified.
There is a problem with sexuality in many areas, we have World cup issues in a couple of years - illegality and the law of international nations. The World has been seen to be Agreeing some crazy stuff on sexuality, one of my other blogs gave a DIRECT press release on the resolutions passed, dismissing Homosexuals as Summarily Executable. And Not even that. IF you ACT or are SUSPECTED to be gay, many countries actually have the remit to EXECUTE you too.
THERE is a Novel Coming out with some input based on struggle, conflict and contradiction between faith and sexuality...especially in those Nations who STILL havent accepted gay people have the right to exist, trouble free, and without persecution....
SECRET OF THE SANDS
Sara Sheridan's soon to be released historical novel is set in the Arabian Peninsula in the 1830s - she wrote to me about why attitudes to homosexuality in the region intrigued her so much, and as such she wrote and indeed felt she had to write in a gay character, and the vagueness surrounding some male relationships.
As a gay person myself, she told me all about the historically homophobic attitudes, and transitional "lax" attitudes towards Homosexuality historically, and a severe swing towards persecution - ALL in recent history.
Its awesome thoughts, a great expose, and very accessible , as Sara's upcoming historical novel "Secret of the Sands" will be published by Harper Collins in February 2011.
There WILL be a review here prior to general release.
This is an AWESOME announcement from The Virtual Gherkin!
I will post covers, and a review AS soon as available!!
BUT anyone thats scared of anything. Don't be. When this happens as a novel, it will lightly alert SO many people towards Gay sexuality versus Religion (if they SEE the twists)......without shouting it out in a screaming fashion.
Let me just leave it there......wait the next blog on this.
Feel free to blog this where you want to. But ALL acknowledgements MUST BE TO and of this Blog, AND of Harper Collins, And ULTIMATELY of SARA SHERIDAN, publisher of 7 successful novels, to date.
We may have her Next Novel notified here, as that will be a month after this one.
With all deference, please keep up with the notifications here.
Love you all- JULES.
ALL COMMENTS WELCOMED.
SARA's UPDATE
ReplyDeleteIt's a story based on the real-life adventures of (most likely heterosexual) Indian Navy officer, James Raymond Wellsted, who was one of the first Europeans given permission to travel inland to the Rubh Al Khali desert by the Sultan of Oman in the 1830s. It's faction - blend of fact and fiction - and I've taken a few real characters and woven them through the fictional element of the story (which essentially is two-fold - the story of an Abyssinian girl who is captured and sold into slavery and ends up as part of Wellsted's caravan and the story of the kidnap and subsequent rescue of two British officers surveying the region) However, in the original research materials from the 19th century it kept coming up how Westerners found the prevailing Arabian attitudes to homosexuality shockingly lax (!) so I decided I wanted a gay character and wrote one in (Zena's first master, in fact, who is a minor character). There is also a very subdued and repressed homosexual relationship between two slave traders (who are more major characters) but truly, that is a very background part of their story and the lines between brotherly love and other kinds are very blurred. Later, when Zena, the slave girl, escapes she disguises herself as a man and an older guy comes onto her (rather strongly, actually) and then is utterly gobsmacked to find she's a woman so there is an opportunity there to think about attitudes to what is and isn't ok (this guy is married, perfectly happy to practically rape someone he thinks is a young boy but is horrified that she turns out to be a woman out on her own).
Gay Muslims
ReplyDeleteAccording to the International Lesbian and Gay Association ILGA there are at least seven countries today which still retain capital punishment for homosexuality. All are predominately Muslim countries. They are: Afghanistan, Iran, Mauritania, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, and Yemen. The situation with regard to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) is unclear.
A book that introduces the QUR'AN by Mukhtar K. Ahmed Al-Mesalati states, in HIS words: "Sodomy is one of the most gruesome and detested crimes, the punishment for do so is also one of the harshest penalties, it is the capital punishment....The punishment is obviously hard, but the crime is of a harder effect on the society if the culprits are let go unpunished. They should not be allowed to live in society, for the epidemic they could spread is overwhelming. Imagine a society with a bunch of sodomites living in it. It will be a society without chastity, morality of virtue, because these values will be executed and killed. Certainly, executing these sick and dangerous sodomites is much better and safer for the society than executing morality, chastity and virtue."
"Some people claim that a sodomite is genetic, but this is wrong. A sodomite is an evil habit, like alcohol. It can start as a trail and experiment and then turn into addiction and disease."
This blog editor believes NONE of the ABOVE. It is wrong, unjust, and unfair to penalise sexuality in this way - in the tamest words I could use.
The negative aspects are outlined at http://www.religioustolerance.org/hom_isla2.htm
Although only those with a serious mind should read this, because it is INCREDIBLY offensive.
H O W E V E R:
There are positive comments in Muslim culture, and on the same site that I researched there are Help and Support groups and people involved in the struggle against bigotry RESOURCES CAN BE FOUND HERE: http://www.religioustolerance.org/hom_isla3.htm
To think that the struggle is OVER, is false. Herein lies a huge issue, of which I've barely touched.
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