Greenland: A Proustian Debut Literary Romance of Forbidden Love, Race, and Identity Between E.M. Forster and Mohammed el Adl

Greenland: A Proustian Debut Literary Romance of Forbidden Love, Race, and Identity Between E.M. Forster and Mohammed el Adl

Shortlisted for the 2023 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction  A dazzling, debut novel-within-a-novel in the vein of The Prophets and Memorial , about a young author writing about the secret love affair between E.M. Forster and Mohammed el Adl—in which Mohammed’s story collides with his own, blending fact and fiction. In 1919, Mohammed el Adl, the young Egyptian lover of British author E. M. Forster, spent six months in a jail cell. A century later, Kip Starling has locked himself in his Brooklyn basement study with a pistol and twenty-one gallons of Poland Spring to write Mohammed’s story. Kip has only three weeks until his publisher’s deadline to immerse himself in the mind of Mohammed who, like Kip, is Black, queer, an Other. The similarities don't end there. Both of their lives have been deeply affected by their confrontations with Whiteness, homophobia, their upper crust education, and their white romantic partners. As Kip immerses himself in his writing, Mohammed’s story – and then Mohammed himself – begins to speak to him, and his life becomes a Proustian portal into Kip's own memories and psyche. Greenland seamlessly conjures two distinct yet overlapping worlds where the past mirrors the present, and the artist’s journey transforms into a quest for truth that offers a world of possibility. Electric and unforgettable, David Santos Donaldson’s tour de force excavates the dream of white assimilation, the foibles of interracial relationships, and not only the legacy of a literary giant, but literature itself. "As it weaves in meditations on colonialism, spirituality, and the erotic, Santos Donaldson’s supremely stylish fever dream of a novel may delve most deeply into a specific subset of the queer experience, but the bigger questions it poses about how we come to terms with our own social and cultural identities make it feel surprisingly universal." - Vogue " Greenland  is a smart, exhilarating novel about racism and self-knowledge.... 'Only connect' is, of course, Forster's famous epigram from  Howard's End , a poignant, at times desperate plea for connection among people who are as much mysteries to themselves as to others. In  Greenland , Donaldson reworks "only connect" to be a paean to self-connection, the integration of ambivalent identities into something like a wryly formed human being for our time." - NPR's Fresh Air “ Greenland is a tour de force that delves deep into the complexities of romantic relationships and racial and sexual identity. Donaldson deftly combines classic literary references with modern magical realist elements. I was rooting for the hero all the way.” - Howard Rosenman, producer of Call Me by Your Name and executive producer of The Celluloid Closet "Powerful and hypnotic. I couldn’t put this book down, because it’s one of the most engaging and thought-provoking novels I’ve read this year.” - Buzzfeed "A delicious and delirious work of metafiction."  - Electric Literature "Besides being a talented fiction writer, Donaldson is a psychotherapist, and his debut novel is psychologically acute in its portrayal of a queer Black man crumbling under the weight of personal, historical, and racial trauma."   - Booklist "Perceptive and personal, this compelling novel eloquently clarifies ongoing issues of race and racism while authentically telling a unique story. Highly recommended." - Library Journal (starred review) "[An] assured debut." - Publishers Weekly “Throughout Greenland, David Santos Donaldson has powerfully captured the isolating pain of a man who has spent his life being seen as “the other.” …[A] fine contribution to a growing canon of Black queer fiction.”   - New York Journal of Books "This is a book with respect for neither the margins of the page nor those that confine us in the real world. Donaldson sustains a plot that ends with ecstasy, action and reconciliation, satisfyingly concluding a novel of ideas that is also about one queer Black man finding his true north."? - Los Angeles Times “ Greenland is unique, passionate, and vast in both its reach and its impact. With his debut novel, David Santos Donaldson has written a beautifully personal missive about a writer desperate to find his voice, his possibility, his very reason for living. Greenland depicts a panorama that will make you think of Robert Altman and Tony Kushner, who, like Donaldson, take you on a night walk that leaves you shattered—but rest assured, you will get home before dawn, happier, richer, aroused.” - James Grissom, author of Follies of God: Tennessee Williams and the Women of the Fog “David Santos Donaldson’s dazzling debut novel can be read on many levels: as a work of fiction that examines the difficulties of creating loving relationships between the colonizer and the colonized—especially when they are of the same gender and of different races—and as a clear-eyed dissection of how empire-building dehumanizes and then subjugates the people it con