Rabih Alameddine

I’m an atheist, a

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I’m an atheist, a devout atheist, but I find religion fascinating. Primarily because of cultural references, as in: This is what we grew up with. Both on a personal level and a collective level.
Rabih Alameddine

When I published my

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When I published my first work, I thought I would never be able to go back to Lebanon. I thought they’d arrest me at the airport. I thought I would change literature as we know it. I thought I’d have men lining up at my door wanting to be my boyfriend. But later I discovered that no one read the book. Or no one cared. Right now, I have only one book translated into Arabic. Someday, maybe if the Syrian regime falls, there will be others, but probably another regime will come into power and it will employ just as much censorship.
Rabih Alameddine

When I’m writing I

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When I’m writing I don’t feel any pressure. It’s after I’m done that I start freaking out. But really, when I’m in Lebanon, I don’t write much because I’m surrounded by family. I feel immersed, or enmeshed, in too many currents. I love that, but it’s not conducive to writing. In San Francisco, nothing interferes with me but my cats.
Rabih Alameddine

You look at the

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You look at the Koran or the Bible, they all tell the same stories. You see them as the stories of the Middle East. The stories reflect who these people were in the Middle East, and this is where Western culture came from. All our literature is basically influenced by these great myths. So I’m fascinated by it. You could almost say I’m obsessed with it. But if you’re asking about the effect of religion on my life – almost everything I do is opposed to the practice of religion.
Rabih Alameddine

I think in Arabic

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I think in Arabic at times, but when I’m writing it’s all in English. And I don’t try to make my English sound more Arabic, because it would be phony – I’m imagining Melanie Griffith trying to do a German accent in Shining Through. It just wouldn’t work. But the language in my head is a specific kind of English. It’s not exactly American, not exactly British. Because everything is filtered through me, through my experience. I’m Lebanese, but not that much. American, but not that much. Gay, but not that much. The only thing I’m sure of, really, is that I’m under 5’7.
Rabih Alameddine