By Deenah
The Ministry of Lesbian Affairs, a play centred around an inclusive choir for queer women who meet each week in a community centre in Dean Street, ran for six weeks at Soho Theatre this summer. The state of that centre – with a leaking roof and no ramp for member Fi, who is disabled – foreshadows the disintegration of the group later in the play.
The award-winning writer behind this play is Iman Qureshi, whose first play, The Funeral Director, won the Papatango Prize in 2018. I spoke to Iman about her work, and in many respects, this felt like a conversation with a kindred spirit. Just like Iman, I too am a writer who is queer, South Asian and Muslim.
Iman has previously spoken about how she felt pigeonholed as the “brown commission.” It’s a familiar story, where writers are expected to write about nothing except their marginalised identities. It can be stifling. I often wonder if this is because writers are so commonly advised to write what they know.
But when you’re an outsider, your identity can feel like all that you know, or at least what you think is worth writing about. The urge to constantly write ourselves into a corner, to be the token and not the currency of the industry, means it’s even harder to break into the media.
Iman’s play disrupts this narrative by writing not just what she knows but what she knows is important. That’s a clear distinction. Front and centre on stage are the outsiders normally relegated to the sidelines, among them a butch Black lesbian, a trans woman and a closeted queer Muslim woman.
By Deenah