Robert Hamblin's much awaited memoir 'ROBERT: A Queer & Crooked Memoir for the not so straight and narrow', traverses a childhood with a cast of unique and marginalised characters. There's his queer conman father, his mother intent on pushing the feminine, the mysterious Alexis, who seduces him into the power of the feminine, and teaches him how to be a woman. He loses her when she disappears into Joburg's underworld sex industry.
Robert is also about secrets and lies. It's about excavating the truth in violent Apartheid SA where law and church decide which body can love another, based on colour or gender. It brilliantly explores the confines of the straight trajectory. Although Robert transitions in his 30's from female to male, this is not a predictable trans story of a girl who can't bear her female body. Rather it's a tale of a human who refuses to live in a box, who questions the straight line, confronting and healing from gender confines and racism.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Robert Hamblin (1969) is an artist, father, photographer, writer and a gender activist. His fine art work is concerned with issues of masculinity and transgender activism. His commitment to these subjects was invoked in a time when he transitioned from female to male and was a founder member of trans rights organisation Gender DynamiX.
Robert: A Queer & Crooked Memoir for the not so Straight & Narrow is published by Melinda Ferguson Books, an imprint of NB Publishers
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