A Vision for Nigeria’s Queer Future

the ministry of arts / books dept.

When the opening chapter of Eloghosa Osunde’s sophomore novel, Necessary Fiction, was first published in 2020 as a self-sufficient story, it caused something of an uproar. The narrator, previously unnamed but whom we now know as Ziz, opens by declaring war on the invasiveness of openings. ‘I’ve always had a problem with introductions,’ he says, ‘To me they don’t matter. It’s either you know me or you don’t—you get?’ In the course of the story, Ziz declares war on his father, on the fourth wall, on death and fate, on the failings of personal poverty, on the English language. His is a slick voice, sharpened by rage, that resonated with many Nigerians—and with non-Nigerians too: the story later won the Paris Review’s Plimpton Prize and was included in the 2021 Best American Short Stories.

Then came Vagabonds! in 2022, much anticipated and lauded by renowned writers, from Lesley Nneka Arimah, who said ‘there is nothing in the world like this book’, to Marlon James, who across his oeuvre has made Jamaican patois into something singular and breathtakingly resplendent. With Vagabonds!’ voracious attempt to embody the irreverence, the filth, the dread and delight, the multiplicity of Lagos life, one imagines Chinua Achebe turning happily in his grave, for here was someone doing truly unheard-of things with the English language.