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Necessary Fiction
- Author
- Eloghosa Osunde
- Narrator
- various
- Publisher
- HarperCollins Publishers
- Publish Date
- 31 July 2025
- Run Time
- 11 hours 43 minutes
- Format
- Audiobook
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What to expect
‘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? Is freedom for everyone?
Across Lagos, a rolling cast of unforgettable characters seek out love in all its forms, daring to push all other relationships – with partners, family and friends – to the brink in the process. As they form and break unexpected connections, they reveal how they know each other, have loved each other and had their hearts broken in that pursuit.
Stubbornly alive and brazenly flawed, they work to establish themselves in the city’s worlds of art, music, entertainment and creativity while reckoning with desire, fear, death and God. Here, we witness their collective and individual attempts to grapple with the necessary fictions that they all carry for survival.
This is a shimmering, defiant cross-generational portrait of what it means to be queer in contemporary Nigeria.
‘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
Critics Review
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'Osunde is brilliant at character, giving the cast rich, knotty backstories that unfold in bursts of revelation … It is bracing to encounter queer people reckoning so candidly with insecurities unique to their experience' TLS
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‘A radical, gorgeous second novel … Osunde’s bitter-bright prose is remarkable … Necessary Fiction is a queer love song, honouring chosen family’ Big Issue
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'Osunde’s writing and descriptions are both beautiful and, at times, visceral … this is prose worth spending time with' Marie Claire
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‘Necessary Fiction's Nigerians are inseparable from Nigeria itself: brazen, willful, sexy, dynamic, explosive. They love hard, fight fierce, and love fiercer’ Marlon James, Booker Prize-winning author of A Brief History of Seven Killings
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'An electric exploration of queer life and desire across generations in Lagos’ Zezi Ifore in Vogue
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‘A glorious, ambitious portrait of queer lives in Nigeria. A vital work for our times’ Irenosen Okojie, author of Nudibranch
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'Singular … In Necessary Fiction … we can glimpse the kind of community the internet once promised' The Atlantic
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‘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
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'Layered and digressive … both deeply earnest and unique'Vulture, ‘7 New Books You Should Read In July’
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‘Necessary Fiction lives up to its title and beyond’ Yrsa Daley-Ward, author of The Terrible
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‘Osunde writes with the cataclysmic dazzle and sneaky spiritual ache of Denis Johnson, but pitches it toward us here in the digital age’ Kaveh Akbar, author of Martyr!
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‘Exquisite and excruciating … With elegant, lean, searing language, Eloghosa Osunde reminds us what it really means to be alive’ Nicole Dennis-Benn, author of Here Comes The Sun
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‘A homage to the chosen family who accept you as you are and support you on the journey to becoming who you want to be’ Dean Atta, author of I Can’t Even Think Straight
User Reviews
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Details
- Author
- Eloghosa Osunde
- Narrator
- various
- Duration
- 11 hours 43 minutes
- Release Date
- 31 July 2025
- ISBN
- 9780008708641
- Format
- Audiobook
- Publisher
- HarperCollins Publishers
- Genre
- Narrative theme: identity / belonging, Narrative theme: love / relationships, Narrative theme: sense of place, Family life fiction / Stories about family
Synopsis
‘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? Is freedom for everyone? Across Lagos, a rolling cast of unforgettable characters seek out love in all its forms, daring to push all other relationships – with partners, family and friends – to the brink in the process. As they form and break unexpected connections, they reveal how they know each other, have loved each other and had their hearts broken in that pursuit. Stubbornly alive and brazenly flawed, they work to establish themselves in the city’s worlds of art, music, entertainment and creativity while reckoning with desire, fear, death and God. Here, we witness their collective and individual attempts to grapple with the necessary fictions that they all carry for survival. This is a shimmering, defiant cross-generational portrait of what it means to be queer in contemporary Nigeria. ‘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
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