The Man Who Would be Queen: Autobiographical Fictions

by Hoshang Merchant

As everyone knows by now, I m homosexual. To write this sentence and to speak it publicly, which is a great liberation, is why I write.

Provocative and percipient, The Man Who Would Be Queen is a collection of lyric essays on the self that flaunts itself as autobiographical fiction. In the words of its writer: The art of living is the art of creating life-fictions. The first and second sections of the autobiography take us through the garden of delight or the no man s land of childhood, and the circle of hell or the coming of age years; it is in the penultimate section How I write/ Why I write that the poet achieves the desired garden of bliss.

The Man Who Would Be Queen is a significant landmark in Indian writing, both as the autobiography of a homosexual and of a poet.

Genres: Memoir, LGBT

200 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2011

Reviews

[Giriraj Srivastava · Rating 4 out of 5]

Provocative. Bold. Fabulous. Autobiography of a gay man born in a Zoroastrian family in times when different was unacceptable. Live his life through these pages and be ready to feel humiliated, proud, rejected, loved and hated.

[dunkdaft · Rating 3 out of 5]

I got recco of this from someone I adore for his choices. But, it failed on me. Maybe cause I hurried to read this directly without reading Merchant's any literary works. So unknown to his background or his works, it didn't interest me more. And finally, I had to finish it by skipping pages. Jumping chapters. Blame it on a really unusual writing style, almost diary like, with even just points written here and there without much explained paragraphs. That I struggled to get suited to. Perhaps any other day ? After reading his more works ?

[Kyle · Rating 4 out of 5]

A profound and moving account of the experience of being queer and growing up in a city like no other in the world. The spirit of queerness is encapsulated in the author's lyrical prose and unique voice - few other authors can hope to match Merchant's eye for detail in a colourful mileu shrouded in the fog of confusion, doubt and anxiety. The pressures of constantly needing to resist those who would thwart or obstruct a man who would be queen are more pertinent to the contemporary era than ever before.

[Vibhu · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the most poetic prose ever read. Words written out of blood and magic. A sheer experience of pain and beauty, encapsulating into a fine creation of Art. Merchant invokes charmingly poetic prose to describe even the harshest of realities. Living out every fantasy and sublimation turned to every work, Hoshang Merchant is a complete artist, who lived in the inferno and came back to tell what he saw!

[Yesenia · Rating 3 out of 5]

so i opened this book to see what it was because i had downloaded it thinking it was the other "the man who would be queen". and i proceeded to read it all in one sitting.

it is a strange book, of a strange man who led a strange life. perhaps not so strange to a gay man, but to me it was strange. as in, unfamiliar, very different, causing strangeness, extrañamiento, extrañeza. not strange as in merely odd. strange as in foreign, a foreign perspective about foreign experiences by a foreigner.

it had beauty and honesty and poetry. this last thing is not necessarily a virtue in my book. it was too poetic, that is what made it strangest.

[Laxmi]

The author presents his autobiography, most of which talks about his being gay. The author uses 'to-do-list-format' sentences in the formative chapters of the book. There is not much story building done, as the result the book does not have the intended impact on the reader.

[Mirvan. Ereon]

Will be getting this book quite soon.