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Foreword
When we in the West hear about lesbians and gays in the Middle East, it is most likely we encounter stories of persecution, images of people with their faces covered and their hands in chains. One of the most prominent of these images is seen in the documentary Dangerous Living: Coming Out in the Developing World (2003) which shows a group of men in court over charges of attending a gay nightclub. They appear within a cage in the courtroom, their faces covered, downcast, huddled together. These images are important and should be seen, but they do not tell the whole story. All we see in these depictions are the faceless, often nameless, victims of homophobia and state repression. But what of the lives led prior to imprisonment? What do we see of the day to day lives of lesbians and gays in the Middle East? And what do they see when they look to their culture seeking images of themselves? This is the importance of the Lebanese novel I Am You by Elham Mansour, first published in 2000.