Advertisement
Books

Books about identity: The best reads to explore race, sexuality and gender

Author Dima Alzayat’s latest set of short stories explore ideas of otherness and transgression. Here is her list of the best reads on identity.

Books about identity offer a lens through which the reader can explore issues of race, sexuality, gender, nationality and culture.

Dima Alzayat is a Syrian author with a PhD in Creative Writing. Her latest book, Alligator and Other Stories, has been longlisted for the 2021 Swansea University Dylan Thomas Prize. In it, Alzayat explores what it means to be the ‘other’; the woman, the Syrian, the Arab, the immigrant. Here, Alzayat tells us her top books for exploring identity and belonging.

The Angel of History by Rabih Alameddine

Alameddine is the master of interrogating identity – how it’s made for us and how we attempt to make it for ourselves. This intelligent, funny, and creatively daring novel juggles race, gender, religion, sexuality and culture. It’s heartbreaking and heartmending.

The Arab Apocalypse by Etel Adnan

This book-length poem is a work of visual and literary art. Its subject is the Lebanese Civil War, a conflict in which identity meant life or death for many. The speaker, unmarked by sect or nationality, continuously shifts perspectives, reminding us that identity is fluid and can divide and unite.

The Buddha in the Attic by Julie Otsuka

This novel is told from the point ofn view of Japanese ‘picture brides’ who journeyed to the US in the early 20th century. Otsuka uses the plural first person ‘we’ to tell their stories. What results is a powerful collective testimony that still honours individual experiences.

Don’t Let Me Be Lonely: An American Lyric by Claudia Rankine

Rankine brilliantly investigates complex identity subjects – like race, gender and class – while creating an interactive reading experience that challenges assumptions. The text is punctuated by photographic television stills, highlighting the media’s role in perpetuating stereotypes.

Advertising helps fund Big Issue’s mission to end poverty
Advertisement

Unaccustomed Earth by Jhumpa Lahiri

This is Lahiri’s second short-story collection focusing on Indian-American immigration and diaspora. With beautiful language, Lahiri probes what it means to belong to a family, a culture, a nation, and even to oneself.

Alligator & Other Stories by Dima Alzayat is out now (Picador, £8.99), and was shortlisted for the Swansea University Dylan Thomas Prize

Advertising helps fund Big Issue’s mission to end poverty

SIGN THE PETITION

It's our call to Keir Starmer to pass a law to end poverty.
big issue vendor holding up a 'we need a poverty zero law' sign

Recommended for you

Read All
The Good Father by Liam McIlvanney review – an emotionally gripping psychological thriller
Books

The Good Father by Liam McIlvanney review – an emotionally gripping psychological thriller

Stone & Sky by Ben Aaronovitch review – weird happenings in the Granite City
Books

Stone & Sky by Ben Aaronovitch review – weird happenings in the Granite City

The best books to read in summer 2025
Summer books

The best books to read in summer 2025

Women were a huge part of the Gold Rush. Why do we never hear about them?
Women

Women were a huge part of the Gold Rush. Why do we never hear about them?

Most Popular

Read All
Renters pay their landlords' buy-to-let mortgages, so they should get a share of the profits
Renters: A mortgage lender's window advertising buy-to-let products
1.

Renters pay their landlords' buy-to-let mortgages, so they should get a share of the profits

Exclusive: Disabled people are 'set up to fail' by the DWP in target-driven disability benefits system, whistleblowers reveal
Pound coins on a piece of paper with disability living allowancve
2.

Exclusive: Disabled people are 'set up to fail' by the DWP in target-driven disability benefits system, whistleblowers reveal

Cost of living payment 2024: Where to get help now the scheme is over
next dwp cost of living payment 2023
3.

Cost of living payment 2024: Where to get help now the scheme is over

Citroën Ami: the tiny electric vehicle driving change with The Big Issue
4.

Citroën Ami: the tiny electric vehicle driving change with The Big Issue