God Loves Hair

Extremely short with gorgeous, telling pictures, the entire coming-of-age story can be read in about 15 minutes. It tracks a boy from his birth -- his mother wants boys so badly that she promises to donate their hair in a temple if given boys, leading everyone to believe the boy is a girl for his first two years -- through his coming of age and the beginnings of puberty and sexual awakening. Lots of nice Indian-Canadian and queer experience details mixed in with a series of powerful vignettes, excellently written.

An interesting collection of stories, as colourful and unique as the author herself. Vivek Shraya is a popular musician, writer and visual artist. Born to Indian parents settled in Canada, Shraya came out as transgender in 2016, at the age of 35 and chose she/her as her preferred pronouns. She uses her childhood memories to create short stories for this book. The stories span a variety of personal experiences, and show a child struggling to come into “his” own in the confusing world around. This was a nice read for me, equally insightful and entertaining. The language is quite simple yet the stories hold your attention. The illustrations accompanying the stories were a perfect add-on to the stories and complemented them well. show more

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God Loves Hair is a collection of 20 short stories following a tender, intellectual, and curious Indian child as he navigates his way in Toronto , Canada in the complex realms of sexuality (being LGBTQ himself), gender (indian parents radical views about being with girl and getting them pregnant), racial politics (being treated unworthy), religion (knowing his truth and accepting it through a photo of Shiv parvati where the god is himself half man, half women, and belonging of the country, to a culture to fit in.

Told with the poignant insight and honesty that only the voice of a young mind can convey, each story is accompanied by a vivid illustration.

I liked this a lot. I'm not sure what I was expecting from this but it was quite good and interesting. Especially the way it was told - in a childish, short and sweet format but with subject matter that is probably not for children.

will i ever dislike anything vivek shraya has ever written?

not today.

i loved this.

An illustrated short story compilation about coming of age in a Hindu family in Canada and exploring gender identity questions.