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The Man of Middling Height
What if our society's deepest prejudices weren't about race, gender, or sexuality--but height? In his groundbreaking allegorical novel, acclaimed Jordanian author and activist Fadi Zaghmout imagines just such a world, crafting a powerful meditation on discrimination and desire that speaks directly to our contemporary debates about identity and inclusion.
The Man of Middling Height follows a short dressmaker whose life is upended when she meets Tallan, a man whose middle height places him outside the rigid tall/short binary that governs their society. As their forbidden romance blossoms, they must navigate a world where height determines everything from social status to romantic possibilities. Through their story and those of surrounding characters--including a short person in a polyamorous relationship with two tall partners, and a tall activist who scandalously loves another tall person--Zaghmout deftly reframes contemporary discussions about gender identity and sexuality through the lens of height discrimination.
The Man of Middling Height follows a short dressmaker whose life is upended when she meets Tallan, a man whose middle height places him outside the rigid tall/short binary that governs their society. As their forbidden romance blossoms, they must navigate a world where height determines everything from social status to romantic possibilities. Through their story and those of surrounding characters--including a short person in a polyamorous relationship with two tall partners, and a tall activist who scandalously loves another tall person--Zaghmout deftly reframes contemporary discussions about gender identity and sexuality through the lens of height discrimination.
- GenresFiction
230 pages, Paperback
Published August 15, 2025
About the author
Fadi Zaghmout | فادي زغموت
9 books436 followersكاتب أردني حاصل على شهادة ماجستير في الكتابة الإبداعية والتفكير النقدي من جامعة ساسكس في المملكة المتحدة. صدرت له ست روايات: عروس عمّان، جنة على الأرض، ليلى والحمل، إبرة وكشتبان، وأمل على الأرض وفرح على الأرض. تُرجمت أعماله إلى الإنجليزية والفرنسية والإيطالية.
نال جائزة العمل الاجتماعي لخريجي المملكة المتحدة في الإمارات لعام 2024.
نال جائزة العمل الاجتماعي لخريجي المملكة المتحدة في الإمارات لعام 2024.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
May 28, 2025
Book Review: The Man of Middling Height by Fadi Zaghmout (Translated by Wasan Abdelhaq)
A Daring Allegory of Social Stratification
Fadi Zaghmout’s The Man of Middling Height reimagines societal hierarchies through a provocative lens: height as the ultimate axis of discrimination. Set in a futuristic world where bio- and nanotechnology have ostensibly erased traditional divisions, Zaghmout constructs an unsettling allegory where stature dictates privilege, opportunity, and identity. The novel’s central premise—replacing conventional binaries with a short/tall dichotomy—challenges readers to interrogate the arbitrary nature of prejudice and the persistence of systemic inequality.
Narrative Innovation and Dialogic Depth
Zaghmout employs a dialogue-driven structure to dissect systemic bias, a technique familiar to readers of his earlier works. Characters debate, lament, and rebel against their height-based caste system, mirroring real-world discourses on marginalization. The protagonist, a “middling” figure, becomes a vessel for exploring intersectional tensions—neither fully oppressed nor empowered, yet complicit in the hierarchy. Translator Wasan Abdelhaq preserves the Arabic text’s lyrical urgency, ensuring the novel’s philosophical weight resonates across languages.
Themes of Technology and Identity
The novel’s speculative setting—where technology promises equality but perpetuates new forms of stratification—echoes contemporary anxieties about genetic engineering and artificial intelligence. Zaghmout questions whether progress can ever dismantle humanity’s compulsion to categorize and rank, offering no easy answers but ample material for posthumanist critique.
Academic Relevance
The Man of Middling Height is a significant contribution to Middle Eastern literature, speculative fiction, and gender studies. Its allegorical richness invites comparisons to dystopian classics while broadening the scope of Arab literary voices in global conversations about power and identity.
Critique and Limitations
Some readers may find the height metaphor initially reductive, though Zaghmout complicates it through nuanced character development. The dialogue-heavy approach, while intellectually engaging, may challenge those who prefer more traditional narrative pacing.
Final Assessment
A bold and necessary work, The Man of Middling Height transcends cultural specificity to pose universal questions about discrimination, technology, and human nature. Abdelhaq’s skillful translation ensures its impact reaches a wider audience, cementing Zaghmout’s place as a visionary in contemporary Arabic literature.
Suggested Further Reading:
Zaghmout’s The Bride of Amman for its exploration of gender and society
Other works in speculative fiction that tackle themes of bioengineering and social hierarchy
Thank you to the publisher for a free copy of this book!
A Daring Allegory of Social Stratification
Fadi Zaghmout’s The Man of Middling Height reimagines societal hierarchies through a provocative lens: height as the ultimate axis of discrimination. Set in a futuristic world where bio- and nanotechnology have ostensibly erased traditional divisions, Zaghmout constructs an unsettling allegory where stature dictates privilege, opportunity, and identity. The novel’s central premise—replacing conventional binaries with a short/tall dichotomy—challenges readers to interrogate the arbitrary nature of prejudice and the persistence of systemic inequality.
Narrative Innovation and Dialogic Depth
Zaghmout employs a dialogue-driven structure to dissect systemic bias, a technique familiar to readers of his earlier works. Characters debate, lament, and rebel against their height-based caste system, mirroring real-world discourses on marginalization. The protagonist, a “middling” figure, becomes a vessel for exploring intersectional tensions—neither fully oppressed nor empowered, yet complicit in the hierarchy. Translator Wasan Abdelhaq preserves the Arabic text’s lyrical urgency, ensuring the novel’s philosophical weight resonates across languages.
Themes of Technology and Identity
The novel’s speculative setting—where technology promises equality but perpetuates new forms of stratification—echoes contemporary anxieties about genetic engineering and artificial intelligence. Zaghmout questions whether progress can ever dismantle humanity’s compulsion to categorize and rank, offering no easy answers but ample material for posthumanist critique.
Academic Relevance
The Man of Middling Height is a significant contribution to Middle Eastern literature, speculative fiction, and gender studies. Its allegorical richness invites comparisons to dystopian classics while broadening the scope of Arab literary voices in global conversations about power and identity.
Critique and Limitations
Some readers may find the height metaphor initially reductive, though Zaghmout complicates it through nuanced character development. The dialogue-heavy approach, while intellectually engaging, may challenge those who prefer more traditional narrative pacing.
Final Assessment
A bold and necessary work, The Man of Middling Height transcends cultural specificity to pose universal questions about discrimination, technology, and human nature. Abdelhaq’s skillful translation ensures its impact reaches a wider audience, cementing Zaghmout’s place as a visionary in contemporary Arabic literature.
Suggested Further Reading:
Zaghmout’s The Bride of Amman for its exploration of gender and society
Other works in speculative fiction that tackle themes of bioengineering and social hierarchy
Thank you to the publisher for a free copy of this book!
March 6, 2026
The Man of Middling Height by Fadi Zaghmout is a striking and imaginative allegorical novel that challenges readers to reconsider the nature of prejudice, identity, and belonging.
In a society rigidly divided between “tall” and “short,” social status, relationships, and opportunities are dictated entirely by height. Within this sharply stratified world, a short dressmaker’s life takes an unexpected turn when she meets Tallan a man of “middling height,” someone who exists outside the strict binary that governs their culture. Their growing connection becomes both deeply personal and quietly revolutionary.
Zaghmout uses this unusual premise with remarkable effectiveness. By shifting the focus of discrimination to height, the novel invites readers to examine how arbitrary social divisions can be, while subtly mirroring real world conversations about gender identity, sexuality, and social norms. The allegory is clever without feeling heavy-handed, allowing the story’s emotional core to remain front and center.
The surrounding cast of characters further expands the novel’s exploration of identity and love. Stories involving unconventional relationships and activists challenging the status quo help illustrate how restrictive societal expectations can shape people’s lives and choices.
Beyond its thought-provoking themes, The Man of Middling Height is also an engaging and compassionate story about connection, courage, and the search for authenticity in a world that often insists on rigid categories.
This novel will particularly resonate with readers who enjoy literary fiction that blends social commentary with imaginative storytelling. It’s a bold, intelligent, and deeply relevant work that encourages reflection long after the final page.
In a society rigidly divided between “tall” and “short,” social status, relationships, and opportunities are dictated entirely by height. Within this sharply stratified world, a short dressmaker’s life takes an unexpected turn when she meets Tallan a man of “middling height,” someone who exists outside the strict binary that governs their culture. Their growing connection becomes both deeply personal and quietly revolutionary.
Zaghmout uses this unusual premise with remarkable effectiveness. By shifting the focus of discrimination to height, the novel invites readers to examine how arbitrary social divisions can be, while subtly mirroring real world conversations about gender identity, sexuality, and social norms. The allegory is clever without feeling heavy-handed, allowing the story’s emotional core to remain front and center.
The surrounding cast of characters further expands the novel’s exploration of identity and love. Stories involving unconventional relationships and activists challenging the status quo help illustrate how restrictive societal expectations can shape people’s lives and choices.
Beyond its thought-provoking themes, The Man of Middling Height is also an engaging and compassionate story about connection, courage, and the search for authenticity in a world that often insists on rigid categories.
This novel will particularly resonate with readers who enjoy literary fiction that blends social commentary with imaginative storytelling. It’s a bold, intelligent, and deeply relevant work that encourages reflection long after the final page.
January 25, 2026
Full Disclosure: I had the great honor of helping Fadi edit this manuscript in translation.
When I first began reading The Man of Middling Height, I thought the conceit of dividing a society by height would be facile and easily digestible, an almost one-to-one metaphor for how we divide our society by sex. Boy oh boy was I wrong. It is rare to encounter a literary work that holds up a mirror and reveals the unconscious and unexamined filters with which we view the world. As I progressed through the world that Zaghmout created, following his characters through their everyday and extraordinary lives, I realized that this was one of those works.
Subtly, irresistibly, my perceptions of the story Zaghmout had concoted began to unpack my own hidden biases and thoughtless assumptions about gender and sex, not only as cultural constructs, but also as indivisible artifacts; fossils embedded in our language, our world view, our societal structures and institutions.
It is a big task, unpacking and bringing light to these ideas; concepts we perceive as being universal, immutable truths. Thankfully, the simple language and non-specific culture/setting that Zaghmout uses leaves ample room to examine these assumptions, opening the revolutionary possibility that far from being universal truths, these notions are specific to a time and place; that, beyond that, they they are arbitrary and changeable.
In asking us to empathize with the lives of his characters, defined as they are by the relatively neutral characteristic of height, he also charges us to examine our own lives and how they have been defined by the assumptions that pervade our culture. I began to ask: How has being born male affected my own sense of self? How have I responded to the expectations of masculinity created by my culture?
That in the pursuit of this larger objective, Zaghmout has also created affecting characters and an emotionally charged storyline, is no small feat. The final conceptual "twist" of this book -- which I won't reveal here -- is as sharp as a switchblade. It reminds that every change, no matter how well-intentioned, has its price.
The Man of Middling Height is an easy and enjoyable read with complex and far-ranging considerations.
When I first began reading The Man of Middling Height, I thought the conceit of dividing a society by height would be facile and easily digestible, an almost one-to-one metaphor for how we divide our society by sex. Boy oh boy was I wrong. It is rare to encounter a literary work that holds up a mirror and reveals the unconscious and unexamined filters with which we view the world. As I progressed through the world that Zaghmout created, following his characters through their everyday and extraordinary lives, I realized that this was one of those works.
Subtly, irresistibly, my perceptions of the story Zaghmout had concoted began to unpack my own hidden biases and thoughtless assumptions about gender and sex, not only as cultural constructs, but also as indivisible artifacts; fossils embedded in our language, our world view, our societal structures and institutions.
It is a big task, unpacking and bringing light to these ideas; concepts we perceive as being universal, immutable truths. Thankfully, the simple language and non-specific culture/setting that Zaghmout uses leaves ample room to examine these assumptions, opening the revolutionary possibility that far from being universal truths, these notions are specific to a time and place; that, beyond that, they they are arbitrary and changeable.
In asking us to empathize with the lives of his characters, defined as they are by the relatively neutral characteristic of height, he also charges us to examine our own lives and how they have been defined by the assumptions that pervade our culture. I began to ask: How has being born male affected my own sense of self? How have I responded to the expectations of masculinity created by my culture?
That in the pursuit of this larger objective, Zaghmout has also created affecting characters and an emotionally charged storyline, is no small feat. The final conceptual "twist" of this book -- which I won't reveal here -- is as sharp as a switchblade. It reminds that every change, no matter how well-intentioned, has its price.
The Man of Middling Height is an easy and enjoyable read with complex and far-ranging considerations.
October 25, 2025
I can't wait for this book to coming out in August. I think translator, editor and publisher did a fantastic job bringing it to the English language. I also appreciate the words of Prof. Cheryl Toman who wrote the afterword.
I promise you a thought provoking read!
I promise you a thought provoking read!
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews