Necessary Fiction: A Novel [Hardcover]

NAMED A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR BY NPR

“I want to take the fact that I’m here seriously, because it’s serious. That lesson is so much harder than I thought.” – from Necessary Fiction


In Eloghosa Osunde’s powerful novel, Lagos, Nigeria is the dynamic backdrop to the ambitions and desires of a vast array of characters, each of whom refuse to be defined by others. There is Ziz, a hardcore hustler. Maro and his elusive father, Tega. May and her steady rotation of lovers. Nollywood power couple Ifechi and Tajudeen Adams. They and dozens more — of varying generations and sexualities — grapple with the stories they carry within themselves to survive. In Necessary Fiction, award-winning author Osunde has created a vividly queer world that is at once tumultuous and intense, intimate and tender, and above all deeply human.
Praise for Necessary Fiction

“Unabashedly queer, complicated and occasionally outright hopeful, Necessary Fiction finds in its host of characters the grace of found families and how they help outsiders survive.”—NPR

“Inventively bold and affecting, its obsessions go deep but are crystal clear. What does it mean, Osunde asks again and again, to love and be loved, especially as a queer person living in Lagos, Nigeria — where homosexuality is still criminalized, where you could be disowned or killed for loving the wrong person? The answer lies in the churning, interior lives of the novel’s characters, each spun out as mostly individual stories suffused with tenderness and light.” – The Star Tribune

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