"An intense reading experience presenting the human body as a foreign specimen under the surveillance of judging, watchful eyes . Ugliness is for readers not afraid of feeling unsettled when looking into the mirror of society''s grotesque views." --Booklist "Thoughtful and compelling . poetic and political, attentive and meticulous, Hilal''s genre-bending text is an invitation to face our fears--so we can finally stop projecting them . It''s refreshing to get our hands on literature so daring, so fearless." --Asymptote "A thoughtful, provocative, playful, and truly original exploration of bodily aesthetics and the factors that define them. A wondrous and important book." --Melissa Febos, author of Girlhood and Body Work "How can ugly people become beautiful? Moshtari Hilal''s brilliant (and perfectly illustrated) Ugliness has finally appeared in English.
Her rumination on what makes us think that we are ugly, that we don''t fit in, that all stare at us or indeed avoid looking at us, provides personal and historical insights into our fantasies about ourselves." --Sander Gilman, author of Making the Body Beautiful. A Cultural History of Aesthetic Surgery "Hilal has managed to distort beauty and to beautify ugliness with her probing narrative and astute gaze. This is a profound, political, engrossing work." --Aysegül Savas, author of The Anthropologists and Walking on the Ceiling "A brave, valuable exploration of something we don''t usually want to address, and a thoroughly determined attempt to define the indefinable. Ugliness is truly readable and intelligent."--Virginia Nicholson, author of All the Rage: Stories from the Frontline of Beauty " Ugliness is a chronicle of painful confrontations with the brutal, unimaginative regime of white Anglo-European beauty, but it''s also a savage indictment of the kind of power that requires ugliness to function . After reading this book, I''m energized by it.
In a world of faux pluralism and filtered, glassy, false surfaces, it''s exciting to be a little ugly." --Dirt " Ugliness is a formally inventive work. It''s also both intensely personal and wildly ambitious, a book that leaves the reader impressed with Hilal''s observations about life, appearances, and aesthetics." --Words Without Borders "An unflinching, politically charged visual and textual exploration into the norms of appearance. Awarded the Hamburg Literature Prize 2023 for non-fiction, the book explores who we are putting at the end of accusations of ugliness, and why."--GQ Middle East "Deals with the concept of ugliness and what responsibility society has toward bodies deemed to be ''ugly.'' It''s about the meaning of beauty, growing up and coming to terms with ugliness."--Vogue Germany " Ugliness defies categorisation.
It is at once autobiographical work, charting Hilal''s awareness and subsequent policing of her own ugliness, but it also traces the construction of ugliness and beauty as political tools." --The Skinny "While we discuss beauty freely and often, ugliness is rarely spoken about. Something about the word feels taboo. Yet underlying the products we''re sold to look beautiful and the rituals we''re advised to follow are an effort to stay far away from what might be considered ''ugly'' . Hilal implores us to think about what we''ve learned about ugliness throughout our lives and the history these ideas are steeped in." --Dazed Magazine "Wonderful . for anyone who has ever pondered society''s obsession with not being ugly--all of the implications of that, from disability and illness to racism and aging. Ugliness is set apart by Hilal''s explorations of different forms of expression, and by how incredibly profound it is.
Deeply thoughtful, and very highly recommended." --Harare Review of Books "Both dreamy and grounded, expansive and constrained, Ugliness makes for a conceptual puzzle that will appeal to anyone interested in the cultural critique of aesthetics . Ugliness is utterly beautiful." --A Thin Slice of Anxiety "Aesthetic canons are the result of an education that seeks to create hierarchies. And they are arbitrary as explained by Moshtari Hilal, an artist finally at peace with a face that has long tormented her."--Vanity Fair Italy "What makes Ugliness special is the unconventional form of the text: a mixture of essayistic passages, autobiographical writing, poems, personal photos and collages, in which the author''s nose often can be seen . The personal mixes with the researched, the stylized with the academic. Ugliness should therefore also be understood as a work of art, not just as a non-fiction book.
As this hybrid, Ugliness is captivating."--Süddeutsche Zeitung "People still endure massive pain just to avoid being considered ugly. There is a reason for this, concludes Moshtari Hilal: beauty needs ugliness. Her book is a revelation, an eye-opener, a slap in the face."--Westdeutscher Rundfunk.