Ugliness

(Paperback)

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Description

How do power and beauty join forces to determine who is considered ugly What role does that ugliness play in fomenting hatred Moshtari Hilal, an Afghan-born author and artist who lives in Germany, has written a touching, intimate,and highlypolitical book. Dense body hair, crooked teeth, and big noses: Hilal uses a broad cultural lens to question norms of appearanceostensibly her own, but in fact, everyones. She writes about beauty salons in Kabul as a backdrop to the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, Darwins theory of evolution, Kim Kardashian, and a utopian place in the shadow of her nose. With a profound mix of essay, poetry, her own drawings, and cultural and social history of the body, Hilal explores notions of repulsion and attraction, taking the reader into the most personal of realms to put self-image to the test. Why are we afraid of ugliness

Reviews

"What makes Ugliness special is the unconventional form of the text: a mixture of essayistic passages, autobiographical writing, poems, personal photos and collages, in which the author's nose often can be seen . . . The personal mixes with the researched, the stylized with the academic. Ugliness should therefore also be understood as a work of art, not just as a non-fiction book. As this hybrid, Ugliness is captivating."--Sddeutsche Zeitung

"People still endure massive pain just to avoid being considered ugly. There is a reason for this, concludes Moshtari Hilal: beauty needs ugliness. Her book is a revelation, an eye-opener, a slap in the face."--Westdeutscher Rundfunk

Author Bio

Elisabeth Lauffer is the recipient of the 2014 Gutekunst Translation Prize. After graduating from Wesleyan University, she lived in Berlin and then obtained a master's in education from Harvard.