Book 2: You Exist Too Much (2020) - Zaina Arafat

Thursday March 13

What is the book about?

On a hot day in Bethlehem, a 12-year-old Palestinian-American girl is yelled at by a group of men outside the Church of the Nativity. She has exposed her legs in a biblical city, an act they deem forbidden, and their judgement will echo on through her adolescence. When our narrator finally admits to her mother that she is queer, her mother's response only intensifies a sense of shame: "You exist too much," she tells her daughter.

Told in vignettes that flash between the U.S. and the Middle East--from New York to Jordan, Lebanon, and Palestine--Zaina Arafat's debut novel traces her protagonist's progress from blushing teen to sought-after DJ and aspiring writer. In Brooklyn, she moves into an apartment with her first serious girlfriend and tries to content herself with their comfortable relationship. But soon her longings, so closely hidden during her teenage years, explode out into reckless romantic encounters and obsessions with other people.

Fragment (to get an idea of the style)

“I watched her back muscles strain and flex as she got up and walked to the bathroom. She took her robe off the hook, covering herself before closing the door. I could tell I’d ruined things, I felt rejected, defeated, worthless. I felt myself shattered to pieces. I got up and pulled on my clothes. I knocked lightly on the bathroom door. She said nothing. I considered apologizing, though for what exactly, I wasn’t sure.”

First sentence

“In Bethlehem when I was twelve, men in airy white gowns sat at a three-legged table outside the Church of Nativity.”

Winning second and third sentence

"I walked past the men minding my own business, and was violently made aware of their presence only when one of them started shouting at me. The others joined in and, though I wasn't quite sure what prompted this vocal outburst, I gathered from the direction of their gaze that my uncovered legs were reason enough for such outrage."

Lesana Marcinová, Arts, Culture and Media student

Nice to know

You Exist Too Much is Zaina Arafat's first novel. It was awarded the Lambda Literary Award in 2021. You can also find the short story Resist that was published in the Iowa Review in the University's Library .