Moshtari Hilal discusses her book Ugliness (New Vessel Press, 2025), translated from the German by Elisabeth Lauffer—dealing with attraction, repulsion and mounting pressures to conform to norms of appearance—with New York Times columnist and Hofstra University literature professor Rhonda Garelick.

How do power and beauty join forces to determine who is considered ugly? What role does that ugliness play in fomenting hatred? Moshtari Hilal, an Afghan-born author and artist who lives in Germany, has written a touching, intimate, and highly political book. Dense body hair, crooked teeth, and big noses: Hilal uses a broad cultural lens to question norms of appearance—ostensibly her own, but in fact everyone’s. She writes about beauty salons in Kabul as a backdrop to the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, Darwin’s theory of evolution, Kim Kardashian, and a utopian place in the shadow of her nose. With a profound mix of essay, poetry, her own drawings, and cultural and social history of the body, Hilal explores notions of repulsion and attraction, taking the reader into the most personal of realms to put self-image to the test. Why are we afraid of ugliness?

Please note that an additional event will be held at 7:00pm on Thursday, March 6, at the Community Bookstore in Park Slope (143 Seventh Avenue, Brooklyn, NY).

Presented by Hofstra University's Institute for Public Humanities and the Arts in partnership with Goethe-Institut, the New York Institute for the Humanities, New Vessel Press, and The School of Art, Design History & Theory at Parsons School of Design.