The Man Who Would Be Queen

This book is basically an autobiography in which the author Hoshang Merchant talks about his life through a series of vignettes.

In the Man Who Would be Queen: Autobiographical Fictions, the author starts off by talking about his childhood and growing up in a rich family in Mumbai. His family had issues and was extremely dysfunctional and this clearly affected him to a great extent. His father had no love or affection for his kids or wife and the author's mother constantly struggled to hold the family together. His sisters never agreed to or accepted Hoshang's decisions and choices in life.

Hoshang finished his education in the US and Germany and travelled widely through West Asia for work and pleasure. His travel escapades, that started as early as his student life, resulted in numerous episodes because of his sexual orientation and there were also several eventful incidents that led to his growth as a writer and poet in the initial part of the book, the author talks about his series of lovers and the sexual experiences that he had, along with a string of family clashes that occurred.

Hoshang talks about his encounters with gay and bisexual men and how he was the one who was mostly hurt and betrayed, since none of them had the courage to come out and lived their lives hiding their sexualty. He talks about all his sexual experiences, out of which, some involved love and affection, but some did not. A few of his relationships lasted just a few months or years, while most of them did not. He also briefly talks about his love for a fellow student named Nablus, which was also an episode that didn't end well.