Necessary Fiction

‘A vital work for our times’ IRENOSEN OKOJIE

‘Radical, gorgeous … a queer love song, honouring chosen family’ BIG ISSUE

‘Beautiful … this is prose worth spending time with’ MARIE CLAIRE

‘A gorgeously deeply humane book’ NICOLE DENNIS-BENN

‘A vivid, stirring revolution’ YRSA DALEY-WARD

‘The ink practically hovers off the page’ KAVEH AKBAR

What makes a family? How is it defined and by whom?

Across Lagos, a rolling cast of unforgettable characters seek out love in all its forms, daring to push all other relationships – with partners, relatives and friends – to the brink in the process. Stubbornly alive and brazenly flawed, they work to establish themselves in the worlds of art, music, entertainment and creativity in the city, all while reckoning with desire, fear, death and God. To build a queer community, they must all grapple with the necessary fictions that they carry for survival.

‘Both deeply earnest and unique’ VULTURE

‘Unabashedly queer, complicated and occasionally outright hopeful’ NPR

‘Osunde is brilliant at character, giving the cast rich, knotty backstories that unfold in bursts of revelation’ TLS

‘Necessary Fiction's Nigerians are inseparable from Nigeria itself: brazen, willful, sexy, dynamic, explosive’ MARLON JAMES, author of A Brief History of Seven Killings

‘Osunde’s writing shines … It’s not just beautiful – it’s transformative’ BASSEY IKPI, author of I’m Telling the Truth But I’m Lying