“I am forever changed after reading this book”, “outstanding” and “achingly beautiful” are just some of how fellow authors have described renowned Palestinian scholar Tareq Baconi’s moving memoir, Fire in Every Direction.

At once a love story, a coming-of-age tale and a diasporic narrative, it takes us from the Middle East to London, and from 1948 to the present, as Baconi traces generations of his family’s displacement through war, as well as his own political and queer awakening in the face of other forms of exile and oppression.

What emerges is a powerful examination of the meaning of home, impossible love amidst unimaginable odds, and a fierce fight for a clear sense of self against the most fractured of backdrops.

Kaan Hiini (Te Arawa, Ngāpuhi, Te Rarawa, Pākehā) meets him.