Point of View

The Wrong End of the Telescope is written from the first-person point of view of Mina, a Lebanese American doctor. It is mostly in the past tense, but also makes the reader aware that Mina is speaking or writing from a point in time after the novel’s main events, and includes some reflections from her in the present tense. In the central timeline, Mina depicts events she witnesses in Lesbos, as she is providing medical care there during the refugee crisis around the end of 2015 and the beginning of 2016. In addition, she covers events from her childhood and early adulthood, chronicling for the reader her journey to becoming comfortable with herself as a transgender woman, her relationships with her ex-girlfriend Jennifer and her wife Francine, her relationship with her brother Mazen, and her irreconcilable break with the rest of her family.

Despite Mina’s...