Since it is Pride month, I am sharing an excerpt from my review here.  This novel is about Afghanistan by an Afghan writer, so it hopefully adds to the conversation on that topic as well. In general, I think there needs to be more discussion on BP about non-normative sexualities. 

The Carpet Weaver, Nemat Sadat’s debut novel, is the story of a young Afghan man coming to terms with his sexuality amid a backdrop of civil war and political unrest in 1970s and ‘80s Afghanistan.As one of the few South Asian novels featuring homosexuality as a central theme, it is an important book. However, the plot could fairly be called cliched. Certainly, readers of Khaled Hosseini’s The Kite Runner would find much that is familiar in this novel.

The rest of the review can be found on Substack.  Also see my review of Khaled Alesmael’s novel Selamlik.