A CLMP Firecracker Award Finalist Sex vengeance and betrayal in modern day Tehran—Navid
Sinaki’s bold and cinematic debut is a queer literary noir following Anjir a morbid romantic
and petty thief whose boyfriend disappears just as they’re planning to leave their hometown for
good Anjir and Zal are childhood best friends turned adults in love. The only problem is they
live in Iran where being openly gay is criminalized and the government’s apparent acceptance
of trans people requires them to surgically transition and pass as cis straight people. When
Zal is brutally attacked after being seen with another man in public despite the betrayal
Anjir becomes even more determined to carry out their longstanding plan for the future: Anjir
who’s always identified with the mythical gender-changing Tiresias will become a woman and
they’ll move to a new town for a fresh start as husband and wife. Then Zal vanishes leaving a
cryptic note behind that sets Anjir on a quest to find the other man hoping he will lead to
Zal. Stalking and stealing his way through the streets clubs library stacks hotel rooms and
museum halls of Tehran—where he encounters his troubled mother addict brother and the dynamic
Leyli a new friend who is undergoing a transition of her own—Anjir soon realizes that someone
is tailing him too. It quickly becomes clear that more violence may be the fastest route to
freedom as Anjir’s morals and gender identity are pushed to new places in the pursuit of love
peace and self-determination. Steeped in ancient Persian and Greek myths and brimming with
poetic vulnerability subversive bite and noirish grit Medusa of the Roses is a page-turning
wallop of a story from a bright new literary talent.
