Necessary Fiction

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

“The wide scope of Osunde’s novel helps establish the feeling of a true community among characters from vastly different backgrounds with varying levels of support from their blood families. Osunde’s evocative and emotional prose is the throughline that ties together their wide-ranging narrative.” – AV Club

“Evocative, original, and fierce, Osunde’s storytelling centers the queer Nigerian experience in its rich setting, vivid language, honest relationships and compassionate heart.”—Ms. Magazine

“Layered and digressive…both deeply earnest and unique.” —Vulture

“[A] gorgeous literary exploration of queer life, family, friendship, desire in Nigeria. Featuring more than two dozen characters across generations and scattered throughout Lagos, it’s simultaneously sprawling and intimate.” —Autostraddle

“Once again, Osunde brings their characters to life with startling verve.”—Bustle

“[A] kaleidoscopic view of queer Nigerian life in this vibrant tale of a diverse group of friends and relatives and their internal struggles … Osunde shines in their voice-driven narration, smoothly integrating Nigerian Pidgin into the novel’s crystalline prose … there’s much to love in this bighearted novel.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“These candid and descriptive stories tackle divisive situations shown through the day-to-day happenings, steamy escapades, passionate musings, and bittersweet predicaments of spirited individuals.” —Booklist

“A panoramic look at queer life in Nigeria …Osunde’s prose is beautiful… they have clearly put a lot of thought into their characters, whom they treat with tenderness and compassion.”—Kirkus

“Necessary Fiction‘s Nigerians are inseparable from Nigeria itself: brazen, willful, sexy, dynamic, explosive. They love hard, fight fierce, and love fiercer. And yet they are forced to the margins of their own society, having to navigate love and happiness under a blanket of fear, danger, and uncertainty. This is where the title becomes gospel, for they need those stories in order to live. When life has risk at every turn, family is chosen, and love is on the edge of the knife, fiction indeed becomes necessary.”—Marlon James, Booker Prize-winning author of A Brief History of Seven Killings

“This book is exquisite and excruciating. It quickens your pulse and burns inside you for days. With elegant, lean, searing language, Eloghosa Osunde reminds us what it really means to be alive. A gorgeously deeply humane book, which is indeed, necessary.”—Nicole Dennis-Benn, author of Here Comes the Sun and Patsy

“I can’t believe how alive Eloghosa Osunde’s Necessary Fiction is, how supersaturated and smart. Osunde writes with the cataclysmic dazzle and sneaky spiritual ache of Denis Johnson but pitches it toward us here in the digital age. I love their prose, their characters. Hustle, heart, privacy, sex, yearning so strong it buckles you — it’s all here. The ink practically hovers off the page.”—Kaveh Akbar, author of Martyr!

“Necessary Fiction lives up to its title and beyond—a luminous mirror hall, a prism refracting human need and want, generational patterns and heart work and chosen family carved from the city’s chaotic sprawl. In true Eloghosa Osunde fashion, it’s a vivid, stirring revolution with echoes that transcend time.”—Yrsa Daley-Ward, author of bone and The Terrible

“Honest, gripping, and alive, Necessary Fiction challenges us to find our own truths amid the masks we wear. 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