Tragedy narratives are some of the most complex and compelling narratives in fiction. The premise is simple enough; the story begins with a great horror, and the rest of the book is a picture of the events before or after tragedy struck. With Akwaeke Emezi’s third novel, The Death of Vivek Oji, the tragedy is already in the name.

The book “addresses transcontinental identity, intimate partner violence, queer gender and how we love as illuminators of who we are”.

Fifty years ago, gay men and lesbians in the United States lived in the shadows. If their secret got out, they could be fired from their jobs, evicted from their homes, denied custody of their children, and even sent to jail.

Although some critics accuse Taïa of writing to satsify Western readers, there is no doubt that his novels have gone a long way to giving a voice to gay people in Arab-Muslim societies. These pioneering novels meditate aslant, catechise, and create a new grammar and language of homosexuality for the Muslim world.