The MCQP is an fancy-dress party thrown each end of the year in Cape Town. Over the past 14 years it has grown into a gigantic event, a fixed item on the tourist agenda, attracting thousands of people from all over the world.

The MCQP is an fancy-dress party thrown each end of the year in Cape Town. Over the past 14 years it has grown into a gigantic event, a fixed item on the tourist agenda, attracting thousands of people from all over the world. It is a party where queer culture in its broadest sense is celebrated spectacularly, lovingly and with few inhibitions. Both gay and straight people are regulars, attracted by the space created for otherness and tolerance. This title portrays in texts and photos the various themes from year to year. The photographs are the work of professional photographers commissioned for the purpose as well as amateur happy snaps by partygoers. The texts, from many writers that were also commissioned, range from poetry to humorous anecdotes to poignant confessions to critical views. It explores the personal experience as much as the political context in which queer people live outside in the real world which, for South Africans, is a democracy born in the same year as the MCQP.