Sex, vengeance, and betrayal in modern day Tehran—Navid Sinaki’s bold and cinematic debut is a queer literary noir following Anjir, a morbid romantic and petty thief whose boyfriend disappears just as they’re planning to leave their hometown for good.

Anjir and Zal are childhood best friends turned adults in love. The only problem is they live in Iran, where being openly gay is criminalized, and the government’s apparent acceptance of trans people requires them to surgically transition and pass as cis straight people. When Zal is brutally attacked after being seen with another man in public, despite the betrayal, Anjir becomes even more determined to carry out their longstanding plan for the future: Anjir, who’s always identified with the mythical gender-changing Tiresias, will become a woman, and they’ll move to a new town for a fresh start as husband and wife.

Then Zal vanishes, leaving a cryptic note behind that sets Anjir on a quest to find the other man, hoping he will lead to Zal. Stalking and stealing his way through the streets, clubs, library stacks, hotel rooms, and museum halls of Tehran—where he encounters his troubled mother, addict brother, and the dynamic Leyli, a new friend who is undergoing a transition of her own—Anjir soon realizes that someone is tailing him too. It quickly becomes clear that more violence may be the fastest route to freedom, as Anjir’s morals and gender identity are pushed to new places in the pursuit of love, peace, and self-determination.

Steeped in ancient Persian and Greek myths, and brimming with poetic vulnerability, subversive bite, and noirish grit, Medusa of the Roses is a page-turning wallop of a story from a bright new literary talent.