New Addition to the JARRARCHIVE!
Love Is An Ex-Country
Available Now!
Most Anticipated book of the year: Time Magazine, Esquire, O: The Oprah Magazine, Autostraddle, The Rumpus, Electric Literature, The Millions, Colorlines, Lithub, and more.
“[C]haotic and exuberant, defiant and introspective . . . Together, their effect is impressionistic but forceful, retracing the biography of a body whose identity and dignity have often been contested: Palestinian, fat, desirous and desired, once a site of violence and grief, now a site of pleasure and pride.” – Jordan Kisner, New York Times
“[B]eyond violence, Jarrar writes about pleasure and healing, and her own power with the same ferocity . . . This memoir is deeply literary, but she breathes new and hilarious life into what I thought was possible when writing about being an immigrant, an Arab-American, a daughter, a mother, a lover, a traveler, and most of all, a body—or, as she puts it, a “queer fat body.” – Neelanjana Banerjee, Harper’s BAZAAR
“This visceral, unforgettable memoir is Jarrar’s barbaric yawp, asserting her triumphant choice to live joyfully in a hostile world.” – Adrienne Westenfeld, Esquire
“Love Is an Ex-Country… demands a re-landscaping of America. The American excursion is a transnational one, and for Jarrar, a Palestinian refugee, the question of country is omnipresent.” – Kyubin Kim, ZYZZYVA
“Jarrar [positions] herself both as a critic and as a participant in the conversation about which stories, and whose, receive exposure. It’s a vivid and necessary point of view.” –David L. Ulin, Alta
“Love Is an Ex-Country is not a road trip memoir so much as a profound meditation on race, borders, abuse, and above all, bodies. Everything is seen, felt, experienced through the lens of the body, and the reader will feel it in theirs, too.” –Sarah Neilson, Shondaland
“Jarrar, a single mother who was born in America but raised in Egypt for a spell, brings a fresh, critical perspective to the road narrative genre, which is largely dominated by white men. In the backyard of America, the proudly fat, queer, Muslim and Arab American protagonist dredges up personal demons she triumphed over, and unaired grievances from America’s checkered past. —Connor Godwin, The Seattle Times
“There is catharsis in reading Jarrar’s words, they feel alternately like howls and whispers, an impassioned, necessary response to what it means to live in America today.” ––Kristin Iversen, Refinery29, One of the Best New Books of the Year
“[Through] her intimate look at how she’s moved past abuse, Jarrar stakes out a radical approach to self and citizenship, one that hinges not on someone else’s approving judgment but on her own self-love.” — Leila Mansouri, The Believer
“[T]he lively story of Jarrar’s road trip across the United States, along the way reckoning with the abuse she endured as a teenager, and the shaming of her large body and appetite for sexual pleasure . . . In particular, I appreciate the book’s theme of healing from adverse experiences; a hopeful forward momentum that is sometimes missing (if sadly understandably) from other accounts of abuse.” – Laura Waddell, The Scotsman
“Cutting and triumphant . . . Jarrar [is a] fierce, merciless thinker and writer . . . The memoir itself traverses the globe … with Jarrar’s grit and intelligence leaping off every page. The entire book is a symphony for the pushed-out and the unheard. —Booklist
Buy Hardcover here, Audiobook here
About
A memoir in essays examining joy, queerness, kink, race, domestic violence, and love through the lens of the body.
WATCH RANDA
Randa has appeared in RAMY on Hulu, and in the short films GOT GAME and FINJAN. She is currently writing and developing a feature film.
