Queerness, Masculinity, and Class (PEN America World Voices Festival 2026)

Definitions of queerness and masculinity shift across cultures, often shaped and enforced by class.

Palestinian writer Tareq Baconi reflects on his childhood best friend, the boy he loved while growing up in Jordan, in his memoir Fire in Every Direction, set against the backdrop of his family’s history of dispossession. Afro-Dominican writer Alejandro Heredia’s novel Loca follows a queer Dominican immigrant processing trauma from his past in the Dominican Republic while navigating the financial and emotional precarity of his experience in the US. Moderating the conversation is Thomas Page McBee, whose memoir Amateur chronicles his training for a charity boxing match as he interrogates the cultural scripts of masculinity, aggression, and gender as a trans man.

Together, these writers will discuss the different ways queer lives unfold across continents and cultures.