No God But Us | Bobuq Sayed

🎟 This event is FREE and open to the public and books will be available for purchase the night of the event! An RSVP grants general entry, but seating is not guaranteed, so please try and show up early. Please RSVP only if you intend to join us. Can't make the event?

When Delbar —a hapless twenty-something with dreams of becoming a drag queen—is spectacularly outed, he flees the immigrant-dense suburbs of Washington, DC to seek refuge with his sympathetic aunt in Istanbul. There, he discovers a vibrant community of dissidents, sex workers, and heretics. Among them are Leif and his boyfriend, Mansur, with whom Delbar develops a blazing fascination.
But Mansur also nurses a wounded heart, having left his own family, and his first love, behind in Iran. This time, he’ll keep a low profile, work hard to send money back, and remain faithful to Leif—at least until his refugee status is granted.
When riot police descend on attendees of the annual Istanbul Pride march, Mansur and Delbar are thrust into dangerous proximity. With the country surging into authoritarianism, each person must ask themselves: What constitutes a well-lived life, and how high is the price of freedom?

Bobuq Sayed is the author of A Brief History of Australian Terror and the novel No God but Us. They were a 2022–23 Steinbeck fellow at San José State University, a Lambda Literary scholar, and an award-winning James A. Michener fellow in the University of Miami's MFA program. Bobuq currently lives in New York City.

Marina Magloire, PhD. is an Atlanta-based writer and educator. She is the author of We Pursue Our Magic: A Spiritual History of Black Feminism (UNC Press 2023; winner of the Gloria E. Anzaldúa Book Prize from the National Women's Studies Association) and Memory Work (forthcoming from W.W. Norton). Dr. Magloire has held professional appointments at Harvard, University of Miami, and Emory, where she is currently an assistant professor of English.

Zaina Alsous works in the labor movement in South Florida and is the author of the poetry collection A Theory of Birds (University of Arkansas Press, 2019) which was awarded the Norma Farber First Book Award and the Etel Adnan Poetry Prize.

Know what’s Happening Next — before everyone else does.

Get App

Host or Publisher Books & Books