7 Books That Will Make You Feel Seen This Pride Month

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It is pride month, which means it is a good time to consider the state of queer lives in Africa. Admittedly, there is still a long way to go before the rights of queer people are protected in most African countries. Yet, it would be remiss not to take stock of how far we have come as a continent. It is, after all, indisputable that queer lives have become more visible in the past several years. Nowhere is this more observable than in the literature being produced on the continent. There has been an explosion of published queer narratives, giving voice to the long-silenced and showing queer people that we, too, are worthy of dignifying portrayal.

In our latest book recommendation, we have compiled a list of seven books that will make you feel seen as a queer person this pride month. From a book about the experiences of a gay teenager in a Nigerian boarding school to the empowering memoir of the first trans man to force a medical aid to pay for his trans surgery in South Africa, these books offer unprecedented queer representation, reiterating the popular LGBTQ+ rights slogan, ‘We are here, we are queer.’

Read our recommendations below.