At Brittle Paper, this June, we are highlighting some of our favourite African queer books that have rocked and shaped African publishing. 

In Necessary Fiction, Eloghosa Osunde resuscitates her signature style, blurring the lines between myth and reality to reimagine queer urban existence, showing the malleability of queer literature. Ani Kayode Somtochukwu’s And Then He Sang A Lullaby paints a vivid and tender picture of queer desire burdened by social and familial pressure. It constantly asks the question; what is the cost of existing as oneself? This question is also threaded into Before We Hit The Ground by Selali Fiamanya, as it also concerns itself with the pressures of family and faith.

Akwaeke Emezi’s Little Rot and Chukwuebuka Ibeh’s Blessings raise up questions of embodiment and morality. Here, desire is portrayed with raw intimacy that resists simplification. And in The Seers by Suleiman Addonia and Like Water Like Sea by Olumide Popoola, queer lives take a different form. Queer identity is approached through a diasporic lens. 

These works continue to circulate in global literary circles, contributing to budding African queer literature that insists on queer lives as ordinary and extraordinary. We hope this reading list expands and enriches your literary palate. Happy reading!