Pearls from Their Mouth
An explosive collection of myths and musings on the body, desire and power.
28 July 2022
Paperback / 9781914221149
ebook / 9781914221156
180 pages
‘Riotously abandon[s] the narrative structures to which we have accustomed ourselves … point[s] to the fluidity of form and its political potential.’
— Bad Form
‘Not so much a call-to-arms … but a book dedicated to an audience already at arms, whose arms are sore but who are keen to keep fighting.’
— Singapore Unbound
This book is built of stories and provocations—like the birth of a pearl, it transforms that which irritates, layer by layer.
Through speculative fiction and critical essays, Pear Nuallak explores what happens when messy, desiring bodies collide with the hard edge of power. The world’s neat categories are unmade and rewritten, revealing that racial capitalism’s myths are just as much fantasies as Thai bird princesses and transgender magic.
Moving playfully across folktale, horror, satire and critique, Nuallak examines how different beings are formed politically, bodily and emotionally. We discover interdimensional fungi resisting colonisation, queer monsters living on Hampstead Heath, and a mysterious canal running through the ruins of capitalism into interstitial realms. We test the borders of queer diasporic nationalism and take apart the racially melancholic memoir. In this fiery yet delicate collection, we aren’t bound by truth, but flow with it into new worlds.
Pear Nuallak is a visual artist and writer from London. They run community art workshops and co-organise a queer social hub with the Black Cap Community Benefit Society. Their writing has been published in The Dark and Interfictions. Pearls from Their Mouth is their first book.
Listen along to the Pearls from Their Mouth playlist, curated by Pear Nuallak.
‘[Nuallak’s] vision is verdant, their wit is wondrous, and their hope calls us home.’
— Harry Josephine Giles, author of Deep Wheel Orcadia
‘A sharp and stunning queer offering, there to be worn like a charm.’
— Heba Hayek, author of Sambac Beneath Unlikely Skies
‘A nourishing ode to the uncontainable; a generous, incisive call to get close to the body, texture and raw material of how we build another world together.’
— Remember & Resist
‘Moves with purpose into the complex knot of life as a diasporic Thai queer in Britain … to find a way of feeling out the tensions stretched along its many strands. A remarkable book.’
— the right lube
‘Communicates with a refreshing and rare degree of radical honesty … an essential read.’
— June Bellebono, transfeminine writer, organiser and founder of oestrogeneration
‘Deeply thought-provoking, tender and exquisitely written.’
— Maymana Arefin, a.k.a. @fungi.futures
‘Both dismantles the world around us and reimagines it … in incisive and lyrical prose.’
— Akil Kumarasamy, author of Meet Us by the Roaring Sea
Press
REVIEW: A Set of Differences and Relations
— Singapore Unbound, 28 October 2022
What Form Does Queerness Take? With Lola Olufemi, Nat Raha and Pear Nuallak
— Bad Form, 30 June 2022