elias jahshan

To mark the opening of the festival, Elias Jahshan will present *This Queer Arab Family*, a book being showcased in Belgium for the first time. Through a reading session followed by a discussion with the audience, this event will explore issues of family, gender and sexuality within queer Arab communities. A moment of sharing centred on intimate, political and collective narratives, at the intersection of belonging and identity.

Elias Jahshan (he/him) is a Lebanese-Palestinian journalist and writer, and the editor of groundbreaking anthologies THIS ARAB IS QUEER (2022) and THIS QUEER ARAB FAMILY (2025), both published by Saqi Books. This Arab Is Queer was a 2023 Lambda Literary Awards finalist in the USA and shortlisted for the 2023 Bread & Roses Award in the UK, and has been translated into Italian and soon in French.

His short memoir ‘Coming Out Palestinian’ was anthologised in Arab, Australian, Other (ed. Randa Abdel-Fattah & Sara Saleh; Picador, 2019), while ‘Bittersweet Memories of a Palestinian Knight’ was anthologised in Ask the Night for a Dream (ed. Susan Muaddi Darraj; Palestine Writes Press, 2024). More recently, he was featured in the brand new anthology Homosexual Intifada (ed. Hannah Moushabek & George Abraham; Interlink Books, 2026) with his chapter ‘Palestinian Dreaming’. Elias is also a former editor-in-chief of Star Observer, Australia’s longest-running LGBTQ+ media outlet, and has been published in The Guardian, The New Arab, Gay Times, Attitude, Raseef22, Shado Mag, My Kali, and more.

Born and raised in Sydney, Australia, Elias now lives in London, UK.