In Between Banat Mejdulene Bernard Shomali examines homoeroticism and nonnormative sexualities between Arab women in transnational Arab literature, art, and film. Moving from The Thousand and One Nights and the Golden Era of Egyptian cinema to contemporary novels, autobiographical writing, and prints and graphic novels that imagine queer Arab futures, Shomali uses what she calls queer Arab critique to locate queer desire amid heteronormative imperatives. Showing how systems of heteropatriarchy and Arab nationalisms foreclose queer Arab women’s futures, she draws on the transliterated term “banat”—the Arabic word for girls—to refer to women, femmes, and nonbinary people who disrupt stereotypical and Orientalist representations of the “Arab woman.” By attending to Arab women’s narration of desire and identity, queer Arab critique substantiates queer Arab histories while challenging Orientalist and Arab national paradigms that erase queer subjects. In this way, Shomali frames queerness and Arabness as relational and transnational subject formations and contends that prioritizing transnational collectivity over politics of authenticity, respectability, and inclusion can help lead toward queer freedom.

"This groundbreaking work charts new territory in gender studies. . . . Highly recommended. General readers, advanced undergraduates through faculty, and professionals." - Choice

"[Between Banat] is an essential read for everyone who wants to understand the complexities of queer Arab lives, especially given the myriad restrictive discourses and violent realities that make it difficult to narrate and embody this complexity. . . . It asks us to dare to imagine and build a world in which racialized queer subjects do not simply survive but thrive." - International Journal of Middle East Studies

"This book is highly recommended for anyone interested in SWANA sexuality, Queer sexualities, and the SWANA Region, especially within the context of feminist and queer knowledge production. Whether you specialize in sexuality studies, gender studies, feminist studies, Middle East studies, or if you work on the SWANA region or on sexuality from the Global South at large, Between Banat is a must-read that will undoubtedly enrich your academic perspective." - Untold Magazine

"In her survey of the aesthetic archive, from Golden Era Egyptian films to contemporary publications and everything in between, Shomali elegantly puts forward a conceptual framework to uncover love and desire among women living under historically defined and ideological conditions. Indeed, her method of analysis is striking in its capacity to exhume queer traces and affective ruptures from historic erasure and does so with great care and loving attention to the subjects." - GLQ