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Vendor
Liepman Literary Agency
Marc Koralnik
Original language
English

ROSES IN THE MOUTH OF LION

Bushra Rehman

For readers of On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous and My Brilliant Friend, Bushra Rehman's Roses, in the Mouth of a Lion is an unforgettable story about female friendship and queer love in a Muslim-American community.
Razia Mirza grows up amid the wild grape vines and backyard sunflowers of Corona, Queens, with her best friend, Saima, by her side. When a family rift drives the girls apart, Razia's heart is broken. She finds solace in Taslima, a new girl in her close-knit Pakistani-American community. They embark on a series of small rebellions: listening to scandalous music, wearing miniskirts, and cutting school to explore the city.

When Razia is accepted to Stuyvesant, a prestigious high school in Manhattan, the gulf between the person she is and the daughter her parents want her to be, widens. At Stuyvesant, Razia meets Angela and is attracted to her in a way that blossoms into a new understanding. When their relationship is discovered by an Aunty in the community, Razia must choose between her family and her own future. Punctuated by both joy and loss, full of '80s music and beloved novels, Roses, in the Mouth of a Lion is a new classic: a fiercely compassionate coming-of-age story of a girl struggling to reconcile her heritage and faith with her desire to be
true to herself.

Bushra Rehman grew up in Corona, Queens but her mother says she was born in an ambulance flying through the streets of Brooklyn. This would explain a few things. Bushra was a vagabond poet who traveled for years with nothing more than a Greyhound ticket and a book bag full of poems. Her first novel Corona, a poetic on-the-road adventure about being South Asian in the United States, was chosen by the NY Public Library as one of its favorite novels about NYC. She's co-editor of the seminal text on race and feminism Colonize This! Young Women of Color on Today's Feminism and author of the collection of poetry Marianna's Beauty Salon, described by Joseph O. Legaspi as “a love poem for Muslim girls, Queens, and immigrants making sense of their foreign home--and surviving.”
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Published 2022-12-01 by Flatiron/Macmillan

Comments

“An unforgettable novel of almost luminous vitality, rich with the episodic texture of life, heavy with love for its characters, shining with beauty and pain. Rehman's prose is a knife, and I would let her cut out my heart again and again.”

“With a poet's sensibility for language, Bushra Rehman has created a tender and multi-layered story of young Muslim women navigating a complicated and racialized world. This novel will break your heart open.”

“Enchanting, smart, and keenly observed, Bushra Rehman's Roses, in the Mouth of a Lion shows us the wiry exhilaration of a girl becoming a woman she didn't know she could be.”

“Rehman beautifully conjures in her stellar debut a Queens, N.Y., Pakistani American community and a girl's coming to terms with her identity This deeply immersive novel heralds the arrival of an exciting new writer.”

“Roses, in the Mouth of a Lion is a brave, beauty-filled book that takes you by the hand and into Razia's world. This book made me nostalgic for Queens and reminded me to take care of the girl who still lives inside me. I love this lush, lovely book-it deepens our understanding of the human experience and is a fiercely beautiful and honest ode to all girls becoming women.”

“Rehman's storytelling shares the elliptical grace of poetry. Her deeply sensitive protagonist, Razia, comes into sharp-focus like a shaken photograph, and Queens rears off the page in all its glorious vibrancy and complexity. I loved every moment I spent in Razia's company. A stunning novel from a vital writer.”

“Endearing, irreverent, and engaging. Bushra Rehman writes through the insightfully humorous lens of a sharp second-generation, Queens-bred Desi New Yorker. In Razia, she has created a unique character that is daring, hilarious, vulnerable and fierce. You will want to keep traveling with her long after the book ends.”