hellobeautifulcreatures

In this excerpt from Négar Djavadi's novel Désorientale , an Iranian teen finds sexual  and cultural identity in the Parisian punk rock scene.  The revelation came to me a bit later, through the TV (an old, poorly- functioning set left by previous renters and installed in our room by my sister Leïli), which I watched until late at night. That evening, a concert in a small venue was being shown on Les Enfants du Rock . Because Leïli and Mina were asleep, I’d turned the sound off, so it wasn’t the music that struck me—but rather, the dangerous energy emanating from four young guys dressed in black, barely older than my sisters, strutting across the stage like they owned the world. They were feline, powerful, Dionysian. Their clothes were ripped and their fists raised, rage made the veins in their necks stand out. It was dark and luminous. Secretive. Subversive. In front of them, human waves, dense and insatiable, crashed against the edge of the stage before rising up and shouting ...