SALEEM HADDAD AND THE NEW ABJECT EDITED BY SARAH EYRE & RA PAGE

PRE-ORDER NOW - out 29th October!
Tales of Modern Unease

SOMETHING HAS FALLEN AWAY. We have lost a part of ourselves, our history, what we once were. That something, when we encounter it again, look it straight in the eyes, disgusts us, makes us retch. This is the horror of the abject. 

Following the success of Comma’s award-winning New Uncanny anthology, The New Abject invites leading authors to respond to two parallel theories of the abject – Julia Kristeva’s theory of the psychoanalytic, intimate abject, and Georges Bataille’s societal equivalent – with visceral stories of modern unease. As we become ever-more isolated by social media bubbles, or the demands for social distancing, our moral gag-reflex is increasingly sensitised, and our ability to tolerate difference, or ‘the other’, atrophies. Like all good horror writing, these stories remind us that exposure to what unsettles us, even in small doses, is always better than pretending it doesn’t exist. After all, we can never be wholly free of that which belongs to us.

Featuring Alan Beard, Bernardine Bishop, Ramsey Campbell, David Constantine, Margaret Drabble, Karen Featherstone, Saleem Haddad, Mark Haddon, Meave Haughey, Gaia Holmes, Matthew Holness, Adam Marek, Lucie McKnight Hardy, Mike Nelson, Christine Poulson, Sarah Schofield, Paul Theroux, Lara Williams & Gerard Woodward

The New Abject is released by Comma Press on 29th October, and to mark its launch Ginger Nuts of Horror is honoured to welcome some of the authors featured in the anthology to chat about their stories and some of the ideas behind the concept of Abject Theory. 

​Today we welcome Saleem Haddad to the site 

Saleem Haddad (born 1983) is a writer and aid worker, who has worked with Médecins Sans Frontières and other organisations in Yemen, Syria, Iraq, Libya, Lebanon and Turkey. His debut novel, Guapa was published in 2016, won the 2017 Polari Prize and was awarded a Stonewall Honour. His essays have appeared in Slate, The Daily Beast, LitHub, and the LARB, among others. He was born in Kuwait City to an Iraqi-German mother and a Palestinian-Lebanese father, and currently based in Lisbon. 

The term horror, especially when applied to fiction always carries such heavy connotations.  What’s your feeling on the term “horror” and what do you think we can do to break past these assumptions?

It’s funny because when I began writing my story, I did not want to write something that was ‘horror’. To me, Kristeva’s theory of the abject is much broader than the traditional confines of the genre. So when I was writing my story, I did not confine myself to thinking purely within the traditional ‘horror’ genre. 

The themes my story explores— the rage, uncertainty and fear of a social uprising or revolution, the disquiet and alienation brought on by exile and physical distance, and the powerful and animalistic dimensions of desire— the way desire can take over your body and your senses, and the way that erotic pain and pleasure can blur the lines of consent and power, all came together when I began to write a story around the idea of ’the abject’. I suppose, then, that through exploring these less traditional themes, one can break past traditional assumptions of horror and explore the ghosts and demons that exist within our contemporary conditions of revolt, exile, and the erotic (none of which have been explored in horror all that much).

Given the dark, violent and at times grotesque nature of the horror genre why do you think so many people enjoy reading it?

I can only speak for myself, but as someone who suffers from anxiety, there is a certain comfort in being able to explore the dark side of humanity- the worst case scenario, so to speak- from the comfort of fiction. Horror allows us to explore our shadows and the dark side of life from a point of safety, and I think that’s why some people enjoy reading it.

What were your firsts thoughts on being asked to write a story based on Julia Kristeva’s theory of the abject? 

I was familiar with Kristeva’s work because I drew on her ideas when writing Guapa, which is a queer story. And to me, Kristeva’s theory of the abject is more about queerness than it is about horror. Not that those two are mutually exclusive, and in fact I think so much of horror is queer. But upon trying to write a story based on Kristeva’s theory of the abject, I immediately thought of two things: the body, and our own alienation from our bodies, as well as ideas of social abjects. So in my story I had in mind to write about the body and to write about the idea of social abjection in the context of a rebellion as well as exile. And of course, I wanted it to be a queer story in many different ways.

It’s a subject that takes in some of the darkest and nastier aspects of humanity, such as misogyny, homophobia and genocide, how do you think horror in general tackles these subjects?

I think horror tackles these best when it doesn’t attempt to do so directly but lets the underlying horrors of our human condition seep through in the writing.

Did writing about this subject matter make you look at your own writing in a new light? 

In some ways yes, in that I have always had in mind to work on a collection of stories that can be categorised as ‘dark’. And producing this story which is dark but not traditionally horror, has made me think of the different dimensions of unease that exist in our present world.

The New Abject is published by Comma Press on 29th October as part of their Modern Horror series. Pre-order the book here and join Comma for the online launch event here.

Have you checked out our interview with Ramsey Campbell bout the New Abject?  You can read it here