The story explored cross-continental love with the central character straddling Nigeria and the United States. I was particularly drawn to a story titled Iyawo, written by Yvonne Fly Onakeme Etahgene. Personally, I am a sucker for a great sex scene and the whiff of the erotic is still present in a number of these stories.
Although there is sex in some of them, it is notably absent in others, which supports the book’s theme that there is more to a person’s sexual identity than simply being naked. The stories deal with queerness in different contexts, from war to religion, from high school to looking for employment, to living in a warm coastal town as someone’s ‘beard’. The stories range from centring ideas of queerness to whispering them in passing, which causes the reader to begin to understand that who you are attracted to is not the be all end all of your existence – as many presume of the queer community. This is echoed by one contributor, Emma Paulet, who said she loved that her piece was included as it allowed her to ‘speak on an experience often left to the literary margins’. Instead, it moves them into the continent’s histories by centring them as wives, students, soldiers, lovers, doctors – as people who are happy, sad or simply existing.Īccording to the editors, Makhosazana Xaba and Karen Martin, the anthology wanted to speak to ‘the range of human experiences and emotions that abound in the lives of Africans’.
It tackles ideas of sexuality within the framework of life, shifting the conversation away from the dominant discourse that defines queer people in terms of subjugation and death. This anthology seeks to take away the ‘othering of the other’ and bring LGBTIQ experiences into the everyday reality of contemporary Africa. With 26 stories from Kenya, South Africa, Somalia, Uganda, the United States, Sierra Leone, Nigeria and Rwanda, the stories mirror the range of contributors who are all speaking to an array of experiences. It is an offering from MaThoko Books, an imprint of GALA (Gay and Lesbian Archives), that lets us peep into a myriad existences that either touch on overt matters of sexuality or simply allow these notions and issues to linger in the background of a larger narrative. Queer Africa 2 is a collection of queer stories that follows on the heels of the award-winning Queer Africa. It is an exploration of the African queer existence in all its intertwining, messy and beautiful glory and adds to the growing narrative of the LGBTIQ existence on the continent. Queer Africa 2 is a collection of stories that explores everything from childhood crushes to unemployment, and dating a married man.
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