Let’s start with the obvious: Neither “African literature” nor “queer literature” are stable, precise, unproblematic categories. Here I collect books by African and African‑diasporic authors. The books are either written by openly queer writers and/or and feature queerness in some prominent way. As of now, there is a regional bias in this list which partially reflects the publishing realities but also my own reading biases. Furthermore, the guide is obviously not a complete representation but limited not only by what I have read so far but also by what I have access to (language, availability etc). The descriptions below are partially reviews I have written over the time and some shorter thoughts I put together. It is a growing guide and I will continue to update. [Last update: 27th of February, 2025]

2005-2010

Jude Dibia: Walking with Shadows (2005)

Walking with Shadows is the story of Adrian Njoko, who is married with child. When his wife gets a call pointing her towards Adrian’s alleged affairs with an other man his life unrevels. Published in 2005, this novel by Jude Dibia is often named as the first Nigerian novel focusing on a gay protagonist. On Instagram I wrote about an event with Jude Dibia in 2017.

Makhosazana Xaba: These Hands: Poems (2005)

This debut poetry collection by South African writer Makhosazana Xaba looks at misogyny and racism, but also desire and tenderness. The language is very straight forward in a way I do not enjoy as much in poetry but I liked the themes Xaba touches upon.

Makhosazana Xaba: Tongues of Their Mothers (2008)

Unfortunately I did not love Tongues of their Mothers. While I liked the themes the poems touch upon and the general sentiments, I did not enjoy the writing which at times felt very simplistic and a little clumsy. Whereas I can see how some of this writing could also be categorized as straight forward and simple (in a good way), it did not work for me. There were a few poems I thought could have been great with a slightly different approach (for example the title poem which is pretty good until the last stanza). But I was interested enough that I finished the collection and some time has passed since its publication, I’d love to read some more recent work by Xaba.

Karen Martin, Makhosazana Xaba (eds.): Queer Africa Vol. 1: New and Collected Fiction (2009)

This seminal short story collection includes stories by eighteen different writers across the continent (though with some regional bias), from Wamuwi Mbao, K. Sello Duiker to Barbara Adair. It also includes Monica Arac de Nyeko’s prize winning story “Under The Jambula Tree” (which was the inspiration for Wanuri Kahiu’s short film Rafiki).

Tendai Huchu: The Hairdresser of Harare (2010)

Vimbai is the self-proclaimed best hairdresser in Harare – but her claim to that spot seems to be in danger when Dumisani enters the salon and starts working there. While first their relationship is dominated by loathing and jealousy, they slowly become friends. And when Dumisani needs a new place to stay he starts to rent a place from Vimbai. Set in the early 2000s in Zimbabwe, tells a story about queerness and anti-queer sentiment in front of the background of a crumbling economy and high unemployment rates. The novel is full of drama and memorable characters – but does feel slightly underwritten and underdeveloped though.

Olumide Popoola: this is not about sadness (2010)

This novella follows two women who become unlikely friends: Mrs. Thompson, an older Jamaican woman, and Tebo, a young queer South African activist. The two women first become neighbours, then friends, while navigating their respective traumas, different political stances and experiences. A dual-narration in beautiful, stark language. In only 110 pages, Popoola packs a punch.

2011-2015

Chinelo Okparanto: Happiness, Like Water (2012)

A beautiful debut short story collection which also includes queer narratives.

Makhosazana Xaba: Running and Other Stories (2013)

After not loving both her poetry collection, I am glad to report I enjoyed Makhosazana Xaba’s short story collection more. Her style, which did not work for me in poetry, works well in prose. All these stories focus on (often queer) South African women’s experiences – falling in love, family relationships, sexual violence, abortion, rumours… There is one story written as a radio call in show, which I thought was a great format. Another story is set at a political convention, when a woman gets the news that a comrade was killed and she starts to remember an encounter. These stories leave room for ambivalence.

Diriye Osman: Fairytales For Lost Children (2013)

“Fairytales for Lost Children” is a short story collection by Diriye Osman. Each story has Somali LGBT characters, some in Somalia some are set in the diaspora. This book is also beautifully published by Team Angelica – including illustrations.

Zanele Muholi: Faces & Phases 2006-2014 (2014)

Zanele Muholi is a visual activist, who explores and documents LGBTQ lifes, politics and identities in South Africa. Muholi’s stark black-and-white photography is not only a powerful visual archive but even more. “Faces and Phases” combines portray photography with shorter texts by some of the portrayed people, who write about their lives.

Chinelo Okparanta: Under the Udala Trees (2015)

Chinelo Okparanta’s debut novel follows the life of its protagonist, Ijeoma, over several decades -from her first (forbidden on multiple levels) love during the Biafran war in the 1960s to her complex adult life. Under the Udala Trees portrays a lesbian life admist violence and prejudice, while also showing the beauty of community and connection and making your own way.

The Nest Collective: Stories of Our Lives (2015)

In 2013, Kenyan The Nest collective travelled across the country interviewing more than two hundred LGBTI people about their lives. This book is a selection of stories from this survey. Put into six categories (Memories, Childhood and First Times, Identity, Society and the Future, Coming Out, Love, Sex and Everything in Between, Religion and Spirituality) this book offers a glimpse into different life stories but also allows to see some common experiences. In the film of the same name – or more precisely the short film circle – the experiences of the survey where condensed to five separates, beautifully shot, stories.

Deena Mohamed (transl. by Deena Mohamed): Shubeik Lubeik (2015/ 2022)

Your Wish Is My Command (or Shubeik Lubeik; the English translation seems to be published under both titles) is an incredible graphic novel written, illustrated and also translated from Arabic to English by Deena Mohamed.

Set in Cairo, this novel follows three different characters in a world where wishes are actually for sale. Aziza, Nour (who is non-binary), and Shokry, the protagonists, each have their own story as they find themselves with a first class wish in their posession.

The world building is fantastic as Mohamed asks how such a world with magical wishes for sale might look like in detail – so there is a lot of bureaucracy around wishes, there are religious debates, questions of power and access, quality control etc. And among all of this the three main characters have to navigate their complex lives. The book is at the same time magical but also deeply rooted in day-to-day Egyptian realities.

The imagery is striking as Mohamed combines calligraphy with other graphical forms and finds a visual language fitting for the narrative. I also loved that the English translation kept the left to right movement of the story in line with the Arabic original.

2016-2020

Ellah Wakatama Allfrey (ed.): Safe House: Explorations in Creative Non Fiction (2016)

This book is a collection of non-fiction essays by writers from the African continent. It brings together I different approaches, different styles and different genres: Somehow there seems to be anything from travel writing, memoir, true crime stories, reportage etc. .

The genius of the collection lies also in the way the essays are arranged so that some of them directly speak to each other, for examples: Kofi Akpabli’s text “Made in Nima” portraying the particularities of the place he calls home and where all different kind of people live(d) together is followed by Kevin Eze’s observation of the Chinese community in Dakar, their dreams and aims and the violence against the community. Isaac Otidi Amuke’s “Safe House”, detailing in diary form his experiences as someone who was persecuted in Kenya for political reasons and flew to Uganda, is followed by Mark Gevisser’s reportage about LGBTI refugees from Uganda, who live in a limbo in Kenya (“Walking Girly in Nairobi”). .

Other great texts include Hawa Jande Golakai’s Ebola diary, Sarita Ranchod’s memoir on growing up in the Indian community in the Cape, Barbara Wanjala’s reportage about Senegal’s only NGO lobbying for the rights of lesbians and Neema Komba’s travel writing which led her to a mountain which is said to be magical.

Trifonia Melibea Obono (transl. by Lawrence Schimmel): La Bastarda (2016/ 2018)

La Bastarda by Trifonia Melibea Obono is the first novel (though maybe rather a novella) by a female Equatorial Guinean author translated into English. This alone is a reason to pay attention, but even more important this is an unapologetic queer book. In slightly less than 90 pages Obono tells the story of Okomo, who lives with her grandparents after her mother had died years ago. Her father is useless, she is told repeatedly, but still she wants to find him. But then there is also her uncle, whom she loves dearly, but who is shunned by society for not fullfilling their hetero-masculine norms, and the three “mysterious” girls her grandmother warns her about. This book is quite fast-paced and things often happen (a bit too) fast and straight-forward (falling in love, solving conflicts etc). But it also is a hopeful and fun read. Queer people, Obono makes clear, are everywhere (and not only one, but plenty) and have always been.

Karen Martin, Makhosazana Xaba (eds.): Queer Africa 2: New Stories (2017)

Eight years, after the first anthology Xaba and Martin edited a second one. This time even more stories and a variety of perspectives were included. The anthology consists of 26 stories by writers from Kenya, Nigeria, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Somalia, South Africa, Uganda and the USA.

Olumide Popoola: When We Speak of Nothing (2017)

Karl and Abu are both 17, best friends, and both live in London. Karl lives with his mother, who is chronically ill, but also always has a place to stay with Abu’s family.  It is 2011 and there lies political/ social tension in the air. When Karl suddenly has the opportunity to meet his father in Nigeria, he takes the chance leaving Abu behind.

Popoola wrote a beautiful novel about growing-up, making decissions, friendship, and maculinities. This book captures all the ways comunication can be clouded or complicated – even between people who do care deeply about eachother. She touches upon topics such as oil and enviroment, being a young trans boy (and for once just being yourself without added layers), the London riots. But at the core this remains the story of Karl and Abu, who have to learn to navigate their friendship and other relationships in their lives and have to ask themselves what kind of people they want to become. Popoola invents a wonnderful narrative voice,  employing  Esu the Yoruba deity, guardian of crossroads, and the constant flow of texting at the same time. Content and form make up a wonderful multi-layered work, absolutely worthwhile.

Chike Frankie Edozien: Lives of Great Men (2017)

Lives of a Great Men is the memoir of Nigerian‑born journalist Chike Frankie Edozien which combines his own story with those of the men (mostly) he meets on his way ‑ from Lagos to New York to Accra and Paris.

Nnanna Ikpo: Fimí Sílẹ̀ Forever (2017)

Fimí sílẹ̀ Forever is about twin brothers Olawale and Oluwole who work as lawyers and minorities human rights activists and the turns their lives take when the Same Sex Marriage (Prohibition) Act becomes law. Full of turns and drama. 

Koleka Putuma: Collective Amnesia (2017)

Koleka Putuma’s debut poetry collection was a resounding success getting multiple print runs. Divided in three parts – “Inherited Memory”, “Buried Memory”, “Postmemory”, Putuma writes about post-Apartheid South Africa, about land and sexualised violence, about death and Christianity, about queer lives and misogyny. My favourite poem in the collection remains “no Easter Sunday for queers”.

Akwaeke Emezi: Freshwater (2018)

Freshwater follows Ada, a Nigerian girl, from her birth into her adulthood. Ada is the answer to her parent’s prayers, who wished for a girl, but got more than they bargained for: Ada is an ogbanje. As Emezi writes in their essay at The Cut: “An ogbanje is an Igbo spirit that’s born into a human body, a kind of malevolent trickster, whose goal is to torment the human mother by dying unexpectedly only to return in the next child and do it all over again. They come and go.” The spirits in Ada come – but they don’t go and instead she grows up and the spirits are stuck in a human shell, their brothersisters angry about their staying away. Experiencing a row of violent, traumatic events, Ada struggles to cope and with the spirits within her, which manifest in more solid forms over time.

This book definitly packs a punch. Emezi’s lyrical writing shifts between the spirit ‘we’, Ada, and specific spirit manifestations. Ada’s at times harrowing life is told through these perspectives; there is abuse, sexual violence, loss, mental health issues, heartbreak, spiritual dilemma, a suicide attempt. This is hard to stomach, even though the narration is often a bit detached for the spirits have only limited empathy for human life. Freshwater though does not end without hope. It is a book about all the aforementioned topics, but at its core it is about a spiritual journey as well. Emezi also manages to rope in a portrayal of desire and gender deeply intertwined with Ada’s ogbanje identity thus transcending Western cisheteronormative models. As the spirit we puts it: “We understood what we are, the places we are suspended in, between the inaccurate concepts of male and female (…).”

Uzodinma Iweala: Speak No Evil (2018)

Iweala’s Speak No Evil is about Niru, a high school senior living in Washington, D.C. with his Nigerian parents. He is a good student, already admitted to Harvard, and a star of his track team. When he tells his best friend Meredith that he is gay gradually things take a turn for the worst.

Iweala not only tackles a coming-out and first love story but also topics such as homophobia, conversion discourses, domestic violence, toxic friendships, white privilege, and police violence. All important themes, and all worthy of a good novel. Unfortunately, Speak No Evil did not work for me. The writing is good, but I felt never close to any character because they rarely existed outside of their roles in each of these conflicted constellations. Even Niru’s running was merely a chance to be used as a metaphor. The book is a classic tragic queer story which even ends with a shift of perspectives centring on the straight characters and their feelings.  The story is not only gloom, but these lighter moments are few and between and only make the decline even harsher.

Azeenarh Mohammed, Chitra Nagarajan, Aisha Salau (eds.): She Called Me Woman (2018)

The anthology “She Called Me Woman” brings together 25 stories reflecting what it means to be a queer woman in Nigeria today. Azeenarh Mohammed is one of three editors of the volume. She curates an event called ReSista Camp which is a safe space for queer women to meet, network, heal, celebrate and discuss various issues that relate to the needs of queer women. In the interview she speaks about the political climate in Nigeria, the importance of focusing on queer women’s perspectives, and the stories which surprised her.

Ayesha Harruna Attah: The Hundred Wells of Salaga (2018)

The Hundred Wells of Salaga is the story of Arminah and Wurche, two young women who grow up in vastly different circumstances in West Africa in the late 19th century and whose paths cross. The novel, which tackles topics such as slavery and politics in a way which is rarely covered, is beautifully written. Funnily enough, I first planned to push this book to July to finish some of the #pridemonth “appropriate” reads, but then I could not ignore the call. And surprise: Wurche is not only a very captivating character in general but she actually is also a queer character who desires women and men (it is a theme throughout the book but nothing really in the focus). My only gripe with the book (something I rarely wished for): The book could have been 100 pages longer. Arminah and Wurche only meet quite late in the book and I would have loved to spent more time with them together. But all in all, really liked this book.

Mohale Mashigo: Intruders (2018)

Not every story resonated with me but all in all I really enjoyed the book and I liked how Mashigo took up some common staples of speculative fiction (merpeople, werwolves, zombies, medical experiments, etc) but then put them on the backseat and wove her quite specific and locally connected tales.

Khanyisa Mnyaka: Traveling While Black and Lesbian (2018)

Khanyisa Mnyaka grew up in rural South Africa being raised by her grandparents. After being able to graduate from university, Mnyaka decides to to go to South Korea to work as an ESL teacher. But this is only her start for travels taking her around the world from from East Asia to Central America and North America. In this memoir, Mnyaka writes about the specific experiences she has as a Black lesbian traveler from South Africa. The writing and structure is more simplistic and there are topics I would have liked to see discussed a bit deeper.

Quintu Collab (ed.): Meanwhile… Graphic Short Stories About Everday Queer Life in Southern and East Africa (2019)

The collab brought together eighteen queer youth from Botswana, Kenya and Zimbabwe with academics and artists to share their experiences and create queer positive media. 

Ayọ̀délé Ọlọ́fintúàdé: Lákíríboto (2019)

When Moremi’s grandmother suddenly dies, an uncle, grasping for her grandmother’s wealth and power, sends her away to serve a house girl in the household of a doctor and his family. At the same time, at another place, another young girl, Kudirat, is accused of bringing bad luck and is also sent away finding herself at the same household. Tola, the doctor’s wife, can need all support as she has two small children and struggles immensely with her mental health and the abuse by her husband. All three women/ girls are in a hard place and have to navigate the violence of the patriarchy. But there is also the queer aunt Morieba who sets out to free them all.

This novel is a wild mix of genres, at the same time a family saga, mob pulp, a revenge story and queer coming-of-age. You have to suspend your belief at times (not the least when considering how Morieba got so rich), but I thought, this was such a great ride. I loved these characters and wanted just the best for them. I loved their plotting and the solidarity between women. And even while I did not love every single narrative choice, I am glad I got to spent time with this story.

In the introduction to this edition, Ayodele Olofintuade writes: “Lákíríboto is wild and will not bow her head in shame. She takes charge of her pleasure and is neurodiverse. Lákíríboto is the perfect descriptor of all the women in this story, because they are queer as fuck.” And this introduction alone, and the way they create a multitude of queer women and show their various relationships to each other, is worth, picking this novel up.

Content notes for violence, in particular sexualised violence, domestic violence, and police violence.

Derek Owusu: That Reminds Me (2019)

“In our house, where Twi holds loss within each of its syllables, we sing songs of thanks, remembering what we had.”

Evoking Anansi, the trickster, the owner of all stories, Derek Owusu tells a complicated, layered coming-of-age story. The protagonist, K., grows up partially in foster care, partially with his birth mother. Early experiences with abuse, poverty, and racism form trauma which K. struggles to address even when he starts to find friends and love. The narration through short, often poetic vignettes reflects the ficklesness of memory but also the fragmentation of a self reckoning with mental illness. Though I found that some vignettes crossed the line from poetic to (too) opaque making it hard to grasp any content. There are also some themes and narrative threads which I felt were dropped – which, as this is told in first person, might be very true to K.’s experience of the world but left me wanting a bit more.

Though all in all, this novel gives its reader hardly any relief on its 113 pages but unflinchingly tells the story of a young Black man, mental health, self-harm, and suicidal ideation. It is a strong first novel (or rather novella) which made me excited to see what Owusu writes next.

Akwaeke Emezi: Pet (2019)

“You can’t sweet-talk a monster into anything else, when all it does want is monsterness. Good and innocent, they not the same thing; they don’t wear the same face.” Pet is Akwaeke Emezi’s second published book and first array into writing for a younger audience. In this novel, we meet Jam, a Black trans teenage girl, her parents Bitter and Aloe, and her best friend Redemption. They live in a town called Lucille which believes it has gotten rid of its monsters. Prisons are abolished. Guns are banned. Monuments of slave owners replaced with monuments for the victims of the former oppressive system (including those died in bomb raids in other nations (“nations are not even real”) and those who died because of cuts in the health care system). But what happens if one day one of Bitter’s paintings opens a portal and a creature enters Jam’s house with the goal to hunt a monster. Are there still monsters? Is Jam brave enough to find out? How do monsters look like? And who will believe her?

Pet is a beautifully written novel, clever, and heartwarming. It asks difficult questions about the dichotomy of good and bad, the possibilities of utopias, the complexities of revolutions, the consequences of forgetting ‘monsters’ – and the different faces of ‘evil’. I highly
recommend this book for teen and adult readers alike.

Lastly, I want to share this quote of Emezi from their New York Times interview which perfectly captures the spirit of this novel: “So I was like, if I’m writing something for black trans kids, what spell do I want to cast? I want to cast a spell where a black trans girl is never hurt. Her parents are completely supportive. Her community is completely supportive. She’s not in danger. She gets to have adventures with her best friend. And I hope that that’s a useful spell for young people. I hope that’s a spell where someone reads that and they’re like, this is like what my life should be like. This is a possibility.”

Akwaeke Emezi: The Death of Vivek Oji (2020)

I would say this novel might get easier to get in to than Freshwater and it’s way more plot driven – I don’t say that weighing one thing above the other. I just find it fascinating how Emezi has written three very different books which are still united by a specific voice and themes and all great in their own way. (And all the great trans and/or non-binary characters they give us.)

Bolu Babalola: Love in Colour (2020)

This 2020 short story collection is all about love and innovative retellings. There is only one queer story (“Nefertiti”) but that one is terrific.

Yaa Gyasi: Transcendent Kingdom (2020)

“But to be alive in the world, every day, as we are given more and more and more, as the nature of “what we can handle” changes and our methods for how we handle it change, too, that’s something of a miracle.”

This quote of Yaa Gyasi’s sophomore novel spoke deeply to me and is indicative of the kind of novel – wondering, questioning, philosophising – “Transcendent Kingdom” is. In this book we meet Giffy, a young woman who had grown up in Alabama with Ghanaian parents, and now works on her doctoral thesis in neuroscience. When she takes in her mother who is deep in depression, Giffy needs to confront how her family of four (mother, father, brother, and her) has become basically a family of two. 

This is a complex family and somewhat coming-of-age novel about migration, racism, mental health, grief and addiction. In it, Giffy tries to understand if and how faith or science can help her get a grasp on life’s complications. Through flashbacks and on-going ruminations, Giffy circles around her own research, her daughter-mother relationship and how the unresolved trauma in her life has affected her romantic relationships (with men and women) and friendships. Gyasi has constructed a narrative which is very readable and sucks you in but at the same time allows you to ponder some of the more complex questions in life. This is an absolutely stunning novel – though once again, Gyasi loses me a bit with her too neat ending.

Romeo Oriogun: Sacraments of the Body (2020)

[review upcoming]

Mark Gevisser: The Pink Line: Journeys Accross The World’s Queer Frontiers (2020)

In The Pink Line: Journeys Across the World’s Queer Frontiers, South African journalist and writer Mark Gevisser pulls together years of research, reflections. He looks how global and local discourses and practices affect and shape queer lives all over the world – and asks how these different discourses and practices influence each other, how they are co-opted, policed. This is a book which interrogates how “LGBTQ rights” are used to draw lines between supposedly advanced places and the rest, but also how Western evangelical groups highly influence anti-queer legislation in countries such as Uganda (and of course, the colonial legacy of such legislation) or shows how technical inventions like Grindr can be incredibly helpful in some places and used against queer people in others.

Gevisser is interested in complexity, nuance, contexts and not afraid to leave questions open. Still his – more than 400 pages long – book is so very readable. He alternates between more general analytical chapters and “case studies”: about a Malawi trans woman who lives as a refugee in South Africa, a gay Isreali-Palestinian couple navigating their relationship admits occupational violence, a lesbian couple running a café in Cairo after the Arab Spring, a Russian trans women trying to get custody for her child, and more. But Gevisser did not just travel to a place and meet people for a week, he kept in contact for years, got involved, and also critically reflects his position and the relationships he builds while writing this book.

This is a fantastic book which does not fall back on easy narratives but offers up interrogations which go deeper. The Pink Line is both very informative and thought-provoking – and also full of heart. While I did not follow every line of thought, Gevisser argues clearly, so it’s still helpful to form your own thoughts.

Francesca Ekwuyasi: Butter Honey Pig Bread (2020)

Food is so much more than just substances that keep us alive. Food is deeply intertwined with culture, with memories, with emotions. Early in the novel, Taiye stands in the kitchen of her childhood home in Lagos and bakes a cake. There is butter (“Taiye would die in pure bliss if she were to drown in a tub of good butter, so she used plenty”). There is the honey from the beehive she has been keeping. And there is a nervous energy in the air. Taiye bakes the cake for her estranged sister Kehinde who she hasn’t seen in years. But now Kehinde comes for a visit – her husband in tow. And then there is their mother Kambirinachi who is an ogbanje; always hearing the call of her kin to come back to the other side.

Butter Honey Pig Bread is a beautifully crafted novel. Ekwuyasi weaves together different timelines to tell all three women’s stories and slowly the traumatic event which drove them apart is revealed and the question remains: is healing possible? A brilliant debut novel about loneliness and longing, queerness and desire, family (found and otherwise), this book with all its visceral cooking and food description will leave you hungry (for life).

2021-2025

Koleka Putuma: Hullo, Bu‑Bye, Koko, Come In (2021)

Hullo Bu-Bye Koko Come In is South African writer Koleka Putuma’s sophomore poetry collection following her celebrated debut Collective Amnesia (which is in its impressive 12th print run I believe). The new collection now takes some of the elements of the debut (clear political involvement, centring experiences of women (especially Black and queer ones), working with footnotes, stark imaginary) but evolved them, seasoned with further elements such as quotes, repetitions of certain stylistic elements (like stylizing the writing and editing process into poetry) . There is a tenderness woven throughout the collection which makes harsh realities portrayed fall even harder.

Putuma evokes, quotes, alludes to and explicitly writes about authors such as Ntozake Shange, Audre Lorde (“yes lord, yes Lorde”), Tsitsi Dangarembga (who is still best known for her classic Nervous Conditions but has recently picked up a couple of well-deserved prizes for her overall legacy), Afro-German poet, writer, activist May Ayim, Ama Ata Aidoo, Lorraine Hansberry, musicians and singers like Nina Simone, Miriam Makeba, Makhadzi, and South African lesbian legend Brenda Fassie, as well as many (other) women who have fought against Apartheid (especially in the heart-breaking and angry poem “you built this country with your movements, too”). These are not random choices and not references for reference sake but this new collection speaks of lineage, of community, of (often complicated) interconnectedness – and it writes on against erasure.

Akwaeke Emezi: Dear Senthuran: A Black Spirit Memoir (2021)

“I’d started my book because I had a slew of questions about existence that I was trying to figure out, rooting the process in Igbo reality and my own archive, excavating my own self, but I’d continued with it because it was also a reflection for those of us living in shifting realities, worlds framed by madness, bordered by unknowns.”

“Dear Senthuran: A Black Spirit Memoir” is the fourth book by Akwaeke Emezi, and while all their books are very distinctly their own thing with their own style, approach, and rythm, I loved all four so far.

A memoir in letters, Emezi adresses friends, aquaintances, lovers, Toni Morrison, chosen and not-so-chosen family. In that way the memoir does not follow a straight-forward chronology but instead focusses on themes and relationships (to the adressees and also on a a content level). Emezi writes about their shifting perspectives of their self and the entangled spirit(ual) life, about friendships and holding each other, about suicidal ideation and attempts, about the dispairs of living – and the joys, about writing, book tours and the publishing industry (including a letter outlining how and for which sums their books sold), about putting in the work, about creating a home – in many senses.

The writing is evocative and precise. There are paragraphs I photographed and send to a friend. There are paragraphs I reread multiple times. Emezi’s memoir is a wondrous work. It is deeply personal – of course – but also feels communal. And it centers the spiritual as I rarely get to read.

I will say that the first half of the book had me more enthuisiastic than the second half (and I can’t pinpoint yet why). But in its entirety it is just once again a very good book and something special.

Nana Darkoa Sekyiamah: The Sex Lives of African Women (2021)

The Sex Lives of African Women is exactly about what it states in its title. First starting out as a blog and now finally in book form, Nana Darkoa Sekyiamah has spoken to women accross the continent and in the diaspora about their experiences. The stories she collected are now presented under three sub headlines: Self Discovery, Freedom, and Healing. Though as the stories the women tell are complex the assignment to a subsection is sometimes more straightforward than in other cases.

But in the end, that does not matter at all. Nana Darkoa Sekyiamah is a wonderful curator. She puts together a collection of experiences which while surely not exhausting still covers such wide ground. She also does so without falling easily in the tokenizing trap: there are, for example, plenty of queer, lesbian, bi women and multiple trans women so none of their experiences has to stand in for “the queer experience” or “the trans experience”. Of course, not all kinds of experiences (spanning polygamy and polyamory, recovering from sexual assault and domestic violence, finding joy and power in BDSM, short and long trails to self discovery, the impact of religion, and much more) are covered multiple times but you can feel the care taken putting this together. It is always very clear that a specific text is to represent this one woman and no more. But taken all together a fantastic mosaic is being built.

I also really enjoyed Nana Darkoa Sekyiamah’s writing style. She manages to retain the voices of the different women while also just writing deeply engaging. A book you might want to start and dip in and put of but then find yourself turning page after page not being able to stop.

Tiffany Mugo, Siphumeze Khundayi, Katharina Fink, Nadine Siegert (eds.): We are f*****g here! An African Queer Collection on Safer Sex, Sexuality and Gender (2021)

This is a collection bringing together personal essays, informative content such as a glossary on queer terms, more concrete how-to or instructal texts and some beautiful photography. Edited in collaboration between HOLAAfrica and iwalelwabooks, the majority of the contributers are South African, but there are also a Nigerian, two Kenyan, and a Zambian-Ghanaian contributers.  This book can offer so much to so many people: you want to know how to make your own sex toys (especially in countries where toys are fobidden)? This book has you covered with a overview of what household items can be used and a photographed how-to describing how to make an ice dildo. You want to read from the perspective of a queer disabled person? This book has you covered with a beautiful essay by Genna Gardini (edited by Efemia Chela). You are interested in very specific, localised experiences? The book has you covered with another great essay by Maneo Mohale thinking about her queerness and Basotho culture.

Of course, I am not the main audience for this book, but I loved reading this and hope a lot of queer African people get access to this book.

Buki Papillon: An Ordinary Wonder (2021)

[review upcoming]

Akwaeke Emezi: Bitter (2021)

“Bitter had no interest in the revolution,” opens Emezi’s second novel for a younger audience and a prequel to Pet. This novel follows Bitter who will become the mother of Jam in Pet but is here a young girl herself. Bitter is chosen to attend Eucalyptus, a school where she is able to focus on painting and befriend equally creative teens. But while Eucalyptus feels like a haven, the town of Lucille is in an uproar and protests fill the streets. Bitter has to make complex decisions on where she stands and what she is willing to give (and for what price).

Akwaeke Emezi: You Made A Fool Of Death With Your Beauty (2022)

Feyi Adekola is an artist in her late twenties and grieving her husband who died in a car accident a few years earlier. But she is now ready (kind of) to give dating another chance – or at least hook-ups.

You Make A Fool Of Death With Your Beauty is entertaining and fun, sexy and tender, loud and not shying away from pain. Emezi manages to call on typical romance elements (including the slightly fantastical set-up of an idyllic island, careers which blossom and money just not being a problem) and uses this backdrop to interrogate grief and how to live (and love) after loss.

In an interview with Trevor Noah, Akwaeke Emezi speaks about their longstanding love for the genre. They recollect first reading Harlequin and Mills&Boon types of romance novels as a child and teenager. Emezi continues: “I came back to it a few years later, and I found, the romance that was being written now was so different from what I grew up on. And it had so much representation in it. And so much hope in it. You could read these love stories about people society considers deviant, whether it’s just because you’re Black or you’re queer, or you’re neurodivergent or you’re in a wheelchair, and they get happily ever afters. And I was like, ‘There’s a little magic in that.'”

Yes, there is a little – or even a lot – magic in that. And Emezi has added to this magic with their story centering in two Black queer (in particular bisexual) characters who have both experienced a traumatic loss but are allowed to find happiness here. In general, the novel is deliciously queer with regards to many of the best side characters (I’d love to read separate novels about Rebecca or Joy, for example).

I will say, I have been left a bit confused about the reception of the novel here, i.e. descriptions claiming this was at least a “literary romance”. Why is there a need to “elevate” this romance novel to something else instead of rejoicing what a great addition to the genre this is? Also, I was surprised how scandalized many seemed to be by the characters choices, I only found them mildly messy but may be that says more about me than the novel.

Simoné Goldschmidt-Lechner: Messer, Zungen (2022)

„Die Frauen verwalten alle Geschichten. Sie weben Legenden auf ihren Zungen und Lügen. Sie geben weiter und entscheiden, was vergessen wird. Alles wird Symbol.“

Messer, Zungen von Simoné Goldschmidt-Lechner (SGL) ist ein Buch voller Kraft und Zartheit. In Fragmenten nähert es sich komplexen Familiengeschichten, Geschichtserzählungen zwischen Südafrika und Deutschland und den mit allem verwobenen Traumata an. Der Roman erinnert an Archivarbeit, wo immer neue Erinnerungen, Analysen, Materialien freigelegt und zu einem Gesamtbild zusammengefügt werden. Und auch, wenn mich manche der Fragmente etwas desorientiert zurückgelassen haben, passte das irgendwie zum stimmigen Leseerlebnis. (Ich habe mir auch in Erinnerung gerufen, was Simoné Goldschmidt-Lechner einer Karte zum Buch geschrieben hat: “…denk daran, dass du auch in der Mitte anfangen kannst, es ist ja nicht alles linear.”)

Diesen Roman macht also nicht einzig aus, was erzählt wird (obwohl das interessant genug ist), sondern auch wie hier erzählt wird. Die Erzählstimme lebt von kreativen Wortneuschöpfungen und dem Wechsel zwischen verschiedenen Sprachen. Und der Text ist voller kultureller und literarischer Referenzen – von dem 1980er Film The Gods Must Be Crazy (“[…] und unsere Götter waren nie verrückt.”) bis hin zu Celan (“Sie ist gleichzeitig Margarete und Sulamith, das weiß sie, und sie verabscheut gleichzeitig Sulamith und Margarete […]).

Messer, Zungen ist ein Roman, der beim ersten Lesen viel bietet – emotional, ästhetisch, intellektuell -, aber eigentlich auch dazu einlädt immer wieder in die Hand genommen zu werden, ob nun um im gesamten noch einmal gelesen zu werden oder einfach um einzelne der kurzen Kapitel noch einmal auf sich wirken zu lassen. Ich jedenfalls habe auch direkt eine Freundin überzeugt, sich den Roman zu kaufen – und freue mich mit mehr Leuten über dieses komplexe Werk sprechen zu können.

Akwaeke Emezi: Content Warning: Everything (2022)

[review follows]

Diriye Osman: The Butterfly Jungle (2022)

[review follows]

Eloghosa Osundi: Vagabonds! (2022)

[review follows]

Monique Ilboudo (transl. by Yarri Kamara): So Distant From My Life (2022)

Jeanphi grows up in the fictional West African city Ouabany (the name alludes to Ouagadougou, Bamako, and Niamey) and he has one big wish: not to become “a collateral victim of International Monetary Fund structural adjustment programmes” but instead to migrate to Europe.

Told in first person through Jeanphi, the narrative though spends the least time with arriving in Europe and finding his way there (the part which is often most prominent in similar migration novels) but instead shows painstackingly all the times Jeanphi’s migration attempts fail. But then he meets Elgep, an older Frenchman who comes Ouabany as a humanitarian. Elgep falls for Jeanphi and after some time he agrees to enter a relationship in order to get his ticket to France.

So Distant From My Life is a sharp novella laying bare the hypocrisis of migration discourses in the West and the humanitarian/ “charity” complex. And its story of queerness it portrays is more complex then a simple summary might let you think.

Spoilery comment: I am still not sure how I feel about the ending. It does make sense that this book does not end with anything resembling a “happy end” but I wonder if there isn’t anything between “happy end” and senseless death which could have also made an impactful ending. For me the end felt a bit like it betrayed the complexitiy of the rest of the novella.

J K Chukwu: The Unfortunates (2023)

Sahara, a queer, half-Nigerian university student, is really not okay. And many Black students around her are neither. Told in form of Sahara’s at time biting thesis, this novel dissects how discrimination and mental health are deeply interconnected.

Ani Kayode Somtochukwu: And Then He Sang a Lullaby (2023)

[review follows]

Mihret Sibhat: The History Of A Difficult Child (2023)

The History of a Difficult Child follows Selam, the youngest child in a former land-owning family in post-socialist revolution 1980s Ethiopia. The novel portrays her growing up in a tense political climate and within a family full of friction.

In an recent interview, Mihret said: “When an adult narrates a story, we don’t really think about how much credit for their wisdom belongs to their child self.” I am a person who usually don’t enjoy child narrators a lot but I loved Selam’s voice in The History of a Difficult Child (and I loved how other voices are woven within the story).

This novel is complex and incredibly well crafted and at the same time just very, very readable; it is tender and emotional and laugh out loud funny. Mihret is an immaculate storyteller and so this vibrant novel is brimful with memorable characters, stories, ideas and imagery. Here is no sparseness but instead such vivid prose that every scene comes to life.

Kobby Ben Ben: No One Dies Yet (2023)

It is the year 2019. Ghana has announced The Year of Return since it has been 400 years since the first enslaved people were abducted from nowadays Ghana to the Americas. The three US Americans Elton, Vincent, and Scott are traveling to Ghana to visit historic sites of the transatlantic slave trade, connect to their ancestors – and explore Ghana’s underground queer scene. Their stay is accompied by two Ghanaians: Kobby, a fellow gay man and an aspiring writer and Nana, who might sell nude pictures via Facebook but is deeply entrenched in religion and traditional principles. And then, there is also a serial killer on the loose.

Kobby Ben Ben’s debut novel No One Dies Yet is a twisted, genre-bending delight which gives you murder, sex, and astute social commentary in ambitious prose. In the first few pages, I was a bit afraid that the prose might try a bit too hard for me (as even my love for aliterations was brought to its edge) but then the novel settles into itself. Kobby Ben Ben writes two very distinct voices for his narrators Kobby and Nana, aswell as some other narrating voices. Among other things, he interweaves multiple languages seemlessly into the English text and not just just a few word but entire sentences and dialogue.

The same way most of our lives are not single-issue lives, No One Dies Yet does a lot things at the same time. On a fabulous (and often hilarious) meta-level Kobby Ben Ben, discusses what the global (Western dominated) literary circuit expects from African writers and African literature ™, which kinds of narratives are in demand – and he skillfully subverts many of these expectations within his own novel.

Novuyo Rosa Tshuma: Digging Stars (2023)

“She called the stars her ancestors and said something about them being androgynous or Indigenous or something like that. She went on for a long time about how they had saved her. It sounded nonsensical and poetic and beautiful. I think, like me, she believed that by reaching for the stars, she might grasp their magic, and in grasping their magic, rediscover her father.”

Digging Stars, the latest novel by Novuyo Rosa Tshuma, follows Athandwa Rosa, a girl from Zimbabwe, first as a child on her trip to the US visiting her father, a renowned astronomer working on Bantu geometries, and then, years later, when she herself is admitted to The Program, an elite interdisciplinary graduate cohort doing her own research following in her father’s steps.

This novel certainly packs a lot in les than 300 pages: among other things, complicated family dynamics and coming to term with who/ how your parents are/were, thoughts on colonisation and different knowledge systems, the question of how to navigate exploitave systems and organisations, mental health struggles, (post)colonial politics. And similiar to House of Stone, Tshuma’s previous novel, or may be even more so, it would be difficult to put Digging Stars into one genre box. It is a novel full of ideas and concepts and full of wonder for the world and universe, while also incorporating thrilling elements and elements of a college novel (and, again: more).

Everything is hold together by the protagonist and her developement as she needs to reconsider if her father has earned the pedestal she had put him on all his life and which lessons she might take from learning more about his life. In a conversation I watched, Tshuma said that Athandwa “needs to be dragged kicking and screaming into consciousness” by her friends.

Digging Stars fully entertained me while also also made me pause, my thoughts drifting towards space, maths and science. I would have loved even more concrete discussion of Bantu geometries in the book – but that is nitpicking.

Kopano Maroga (transl. by Ralph Tharayil): Jesusthesis and Other Critical Fabulations/ Die Jesusthese und andere kritische Fabulationen (2023)

Fantastic poetry collection (with some visual art) both in the English original and German translation. South African poet and artist Kopano Maroga uses a lot of religious imagery to write reflect on their experiences as a Black queer person in this world.

Olumide F. Makanjuola, Jude Dibia (eds.): Love Offers No Safety: Nigeria’s Queer Men Speak (2023)

This book brings together small texts (each a couple of pages) from the perspective of different queer men in Nigeria telling about their experiences and thoughts. 

Tlotlo Tsamaase: Womb City (2024)

[review follows]

Musih Tedji Xaviere: These Letters End in Tears (2024)

“She’s the type of woman people would mistake for a man, and they would know without looking twice what we are to each other. Things weren’t always this way in Bamenda. A lot has changed since I was with Fatima, especially with the coming of Facebook and her friends, Instagram and TikTok, constantly holding up their cameras, giving a face, voice, and meaning to everything under the sun, and by doing so, unmasking individuals like Audrey located in less fortunate parts of the world who have floated by unnoticed all these years. It is a good thing, and bad at the same time. The same things that were overlooked in the late ’90s and early 2000s are now under scrutiny.”

The novel is written in the form of letters in which Bessem adresses Fatima. Fatima, who she had a relationship with thirteen years ago and who had vanished after a fateful night – and who Bessem is now looking for. In These Letters End In Tears, Cameroon is shown in all its divisions, anglophones and francophones, different classes, different provinces, Muslims and Christians – and witnesses how its lesbian protagonist, her partners/ lovers, and her gay best friend navigate this overall complex situation in the light of queerness being criminalized.

This novel is an incredibly tragic love story but at its core it is also a meditation on visibility. Set in Cameroon, the novel discusses who becomes visible (and when) and with which consequences. It not only shows how visibility is contextual but also intersects with factors such as gender presentation and class. The latter becomes very clear when it is shown how some people are easily thrown in jail and be brutalized by police for their queerness, while in another scene Bessem is invited to an unofficial lesbian wedding behind closed doors in the wealthier parts of society.

It is a beautifully narrated novel about love and friendship and difficult choices which shows that visibility without safety is a fraud thing.

Chukwuebuka Ibeh: Blessings (2024)

This was a beautiful, tender queer coming-of-age novel told through both Obiefuna, a young boy who after his first crush on another boy is discovered is sent away by his father to a boarding school, and his mother. The novel shows Obiefuna’s story in the context of the changing political landscape in Nigeria culminating in the Same-Sex Marriage Prohibition Act of 2014. Glad I finally read it.

Sulaiman Addonia: The Seers (2024)

“My mother gave birth to me in Keren, but I rebirthed myself in London that spring night as I topped Bina-Balozi on a bench in Fitzroy Square. It was as if a lantern was attached to the tip of my strap-on so that as I entered him, I saw my reflection in a world inside him that was familiar and unfamiliar, beautiful and disturbing, disruptive and reaffirming.”

Hannah came as an underage refugee from Eritrea to the UK where she was first put into a foster home in Kilburn but now she finds herself unhoused in Bloomsbury. Sulaiman Addonia’s The Seers follows Hannah’s story flowing between scenes in the now to scenes of her childhood in worn-torn Eritrea and her first arrival in London.

But already the opening of the novel (see quote above) shows clearly that this text is deeply interested in desire and the erotic. As Hannah navigates so complex and violent things such as war and the loss of her parents, the violent legacy of colonialism and intergenerational trauma, her fleeing to the UK and the horrible UK asylum system, Hannah also navigates desire and ways to relate to eachother; queerness and sexual encounters as homemaking and ways to write one’s own story “unlike the censored version that dwells in the Home Office building”.

Addonia’s language is rich in images and inventive in the way different registers are linked. At times, especially as this novel (at least in the ARC) has no paragraphs, it takes a level of high concentration to follow the dense narration. I think with a longer novel I would have struggled, but for a bit less than 140 pages I loved to dive into this more experimental style as it allows to tell a refugee story which breaks with many assumptions, clichees, and narrow images.

Arinze Ifeakandu: God’s Children Are Little Broken Things: Stories (2024)

Stunning short story collection. These stories – set partly in Kano and partly in Lagos – center mostly on gay and queer men. Ifeakandu is so good at writing characters who already after a few page feel like full, complex people and to write the small moments of the day-to-day. And while these stories are often shaped by characters having to navigate homophobia and heteronormativity in some way, there is so much tenderness, love and care within this book.

Akwaeke Emezi: Little Rot (2024)

“Justice wasn’t something she looked for or believed in, and how useful would it be anyway? People didn’t understand that. They wanted revenge; they wanted people to be held accountable in a world where that just didn’t happen. It was like expecting a rotten tree to bear edible fruit. It was never going to give you that.

It could give you other things, though, if you knew how to work the rot, if you weren’t afraid to touch it or use it. The rot could give you power.”

Little Rot begins with an end: Kalu is driving Aima, who plans to leave Nigeria after their breakup, to the airport. But Aima won’t leave the country, not even the city (New Lagos) and in the following few days, Kalu and Aima find themselves caught up in a whirlwind of events between queer desire, but also and more and more so: abhorent violence, shame, hypocrisy and corruption.

Emezi has put together a sparkling cast of characters: besides Kalu and Aima, there are their best friends (one of them the organizer of sex parties), a corrupt pastor of a mega church, and two sex workers. Throughout one weekend all their lives become entangled (or it becomes clear how they have been entangled in the past). Emezi not only portrays a gritty, violent reality but also shows how easily people can get sucked into a corrupt system, how difficult it might become to follow through on moral beliefs and how money and power allows to sidestep consequences.

In interviews, Emezi has talked about how they, do not believe that authors should just write about actions they themselves support, and how they are interested in portraying realities. Little Rot puts this into practice. The novel is immensely readable and develops a strong pull. Emezi’s writing is strong as ever. But at the end of Little Rot, I was left feeling a bit empty and I wondered, what is the effect of reading all this violence without a lot of relief. What does it mean to have this as entertainment? Either way, Little Rot is a wild ride and I am here for the discourse which promises to open many interesting discussions.

O.O. Sangoyomi: Masquerade (2024)

I really enjoyed this novel set in 15th century West Africa. It follows Òdòdó, a young woman and blacksmith (and thus already kind of ostracized (“witch!”)). When her hometown of Timbuktu gets conquered by the warrior king of Yorùbáland, she gets kidnapped to become the king’s new bride. Masquerade is first and foremost a novel of political intrigue. The middle part of the novel is a bit drawn out and there is at least one thing, where Odòdó doesn’t see the most obvious thing which is kind of irritating, but there were some characters I really loved and the end was something! It’s at times gruesome but at the end pretty satisfying. There are important queer side characters in this novel.

Sharon Dodua Otoo, Patricia Eckermann, Ruhrfestspiele Recklinghausen (eds.): Resonanzen: Schwarzes Internationales Literaturfestival: Eine Dokumentation (2024)

Resonanzen has been celebrating Black German-language literature from Germany, Austria and Switzerland for three years now. It is not only (but also!) about giving different authors a stage, but also about Black literary criticism that takes the texts (among others) seriously in the context of Black history, aesthetics and reference spaces.

This beautifully designed volume now documents this year’s festival. It contains the short stories presented by Cucuteni, Njideka Iroh, Amina Abdulkadir, Rebecca Ajnwojner, Ridal Carel Tchoukuegno, Nana D’Artist as well as keynote speeches by Tara Talwar Windsor and Maisha M. Auma. There are photos from the four days and the final reflections by Yuvviki Dioh. In between there are also the thoughts of the critics (Aminata Cissé Schleicher, Elisa Diallo, Dominique Haensell, Ibou Coulibaly Diop). And of course the opening is also documented with the greeting from Awet Tesfaiesus, Bernardine Evaristo’s opening speech, excerpts from the novel by Dualla Misipo, a poem by May Ayim, a lyrical essay by Raphaëlle Red and a poem by David Yusuf. The latter was originally performed in German sign language and thanks to the QR code you can go directly from the book to a video of the performance.

Fabrice Nguena, Mathieu Cassendo Dimani (illustr.): AfroQueer – 25 voix engagées (2024)

Afroqueer by Fabrice Nguena portrays 25 queer Black people – a lot of them activists – based in different places across the continent, but also Europe and North America. Nguena writes about their upbringing, journey through life and the causes they currently work for.

Latif Askia Ba: The Choreic Period (2025)

“[…]I do the disability good. I disable and laugh. I am big suffering. I cripple forward into bed. I become the verb you have yet to name.

We begin always with the period. Not just at the end of the sentence where it is often ghettoed. But in the beginning. In the middle. Along the sides. On top of. The períodos rounding and rounding. Until its sentence is the open wound it leaves behind. It slips into.

This practice keeps me. So that I can tell you the name of my disability like the name of an old friend.
[…]”

Latif Askia Ba is a Senegalese American poet with Choreic Cerebral Palsy. The collection The Choreic Period is an examination of a full life with a disability documenting the every day of knocking over spoons and needing a cashier’s help to punch a PIN number into a card reader, of accommodations needed and not always given (including possibly the first poems I ever read featuring home attendants), to philosophical treaties.

Ba not only creates his own language interweaving English with French, Fulani, Spanish, Jamaican patois, and Wolof, but also through experiments with syntax. Early on he writes: “I put a period in the middle of your sentence.” The period then becomes the most prominent punctuation throughout the collection breaking up sentences and thoughts in new ways, disrupting modes of seeing and understanding.