How far would you go for forbidden love? This is the question that sets in motion Medusa of the Roses, a queer romantic noir set in modern-day Iran, where sex between men is a capital crime. The debut novel of Navid Sinaki – himself born in Tehran and now living in Los Angeles – is narrated by a young man called Anjir, and addressed directly to his childhood friend and secret lover, Zal. The action kicks off with the disappearance of Zal after a row between the couple. “Should I have just suggested a long weekend instead of a murder?” muses Anjir, in the first hint that something sinister is afoot.
Before turning his hand to fiction, Sinaki established a career as a visual artist, making work that explores queer identity alongside ancient mythology and outdated forms of digital and analogue media. These preoccupations are far from forgotten in Medusa of the Roses; in fact, the novel could be considered an extension of Sinaki’s artistic practice. Most notably, Anjir has inherited from his mother, Nilofar, an obsession with Greek and Persian myths – in particular the figure of the blind prophet Tiresias, “who turned into a woman simply by striking two snakes”. Anjir believes that he too can foretell the future, by reading tea leaves. Then he begins to wonder if he might also be capable of changing sex: if he becomes a woman, then he and Zal can have their happily ever after. It’s an oddity of the Iranian system that the government is willing to fund gender reassignment surgery despite draconian laws on sex outside heterosexual marriage.
