‘Necessary Fiction’ unfurls in a long, arresting monologue-esque narrative that follows the lives of a group of friends as they navigate matters of community, identity, queerness, and freedom.
Eloghosa Osunde was sure the story had ended. In 2020, the award-winning Nigerian writer and artist published a language-defying, startlingly gorgeous short story, Good Boy, in The Paris Review — later expanded into their latest and second novel, Necessary Fiction. At the time Osunde published the short story, which follows a strong-headed and unforgettable character, Ziz, as he recounts the struggle and strife that have shaped his incorrigible yet beautiful life as a queer man in Nigeria, Osunde had no plans of turning the story into anything bigger. The story, written in a mix of pidgin, dazzling poetics, and brilliant turns of phrases, quickly took on a life of its own, winning the Plimpton Prize for Fiction, sparking conversations, and establishing a sense of completion, at least to Osunde.
"I had people write me and be like, 'Oh, no, this can't be the end,' and I remember being like 'No, it is the end because for me, it was a short story, and that was something that I was clear on,'" Osunde tells OkayAfrica.
It wasn't until 2023, while Osunde was driving, that the narrative voice through which they wrote "Good Boy" (Osunde completed it in five hours, the quickest they've ever finished a story) came back to them. "I just heard Ziz talking to me again, and I was like, okay, so he's not done saying stuff, which I found fascinating, because his voice comes to me sort of like a monologue. I don't have to make it. I don't have to mold it or whatever. He just starts talking, and then he doesn't stop," Osunde says.
Osunde parked their car and immediately wrote down the sentence that came from that monologue. That sentence would go on to become the opening line of the second chapter in Necessary Fiction.
It is how Necessary Fiction itself unfurls. In a long, arresting monologue-esque narrative that follows the lives of a group of friends as they navigate matters of community, identity, queerness, and freedom. Osunde writes with a staggering, inventive voice packed with wicked humor and stone-faced seriousness when needed. The characters in this book are people in various stages of shedding and becoming, from Ziz, whose story anchors those of the other characters, to Maro, his best friend, to Awele and Yemisi, two lovers whose love story blooms in the conservative environment they grew up in.
Necessary Fiction is a novel that's aware of the internal complications of building a haven in a land that has marked your state of being as dangerous and delivers that awareness with a frankness that is so crystal clear it burns off the page.
"NF is a novel that's aware of the internal complications of building a haven in a land that has marked your state of being as dangerous."
Photo by Nwando Ebeledike
A tunnel
While writing this novel, Osunde was thinking seriously about community. What does it mean? Is it possible to be imperfect and still worthy of love? What makes a family? How long can a chosen family last? While working on Good Boy, Osunde was equally seeking a different manifestation of community. "I was in a weird space, and I remember that I was just like, God, I need community to look like something different for me," Osunde says. At the time, Osunde notes that conversations around healing and its correlation with perfection were in the zeitgeist. "I was like, I'm not sure that's what I want my friendships to look like. I wanted to be able to do life with people who were messy, funny, and creative in how they love, in how they do freedom, and in how they gather. And so I was praying about that, and it was just part of the background sound of my life."
It is in writing this novel that Osunde answers their own prayer. By creating characters whose love for each other as friends is tender and unshakable, whose awareness of their complications sits next to their willingness to be accountable, who have parents who shower them with complete acceptance, whose devotion to living and joy is a vibrant, courageous activity, Osunde devises a template for what is possible. And much of their work is like this: a constant writing towards possibilities.
"One of the things that I have been given the power to do with my work is to write down what I see," Osunde explains. "I see it as possible for people to exist in Lagos and to have bubbles that are very protective. I see it as possible for people to be flawed and loved at the same time. I see it possible for people who are in deep pain to hold each other gently." Thus, Osunde describes this novel as a floor plan, "On community. And it shows the pains but also the joys, and the kind of fun you can have with your friends."
Necessary Fiction is written in five parts. Each chapter in each part bears a title and carries the form of a short story, all of which are interlinked and share a narrative core. The book travels from Lagos to Abuja to the United States, zipping through the past and the future. It covers a myriad characters: a hustler who left home young and vulnerable and came back as a sharp object. A music artist who is a tunnel for a sound that is older than his years. A man who wields his beauty for access until he stumbles upon love that offers no conditions. A mother who fights to make a home with her girlfriend in the middle of a burning marriage. The characters are linked by their friendship or familial bonds, but also by the brutal openness with which they approach their varied connections with one another.
In the book, the characters converse with each other in a manner typically reserved for lovers. A gushing softness that will leave a cynic looking away, questioning their emotional bandwidth, lines the heart of the book. And as with many of Osunde's works, the line between what is real and what is possible is rendered synonymous, stretched out to accommodate whatever magic Osunde wants to perform on the page.
Osunde describes the process of writing this novel as similar to that of Akin, the music artist in the book, whose creative process takes both a physical and mental toll on him. "What it felt like to make NF was as if I turned into a tunnel, this massive machine/spirit/animal was passing through," Osunde explains. "It had claws. It had a temper. It marked me, operated on me, changed me. It always was itself, and though I'm a collaborator in ensuring its tangibility, I'm not its incubator, or parent, I am its tunnel. Until it completed its passing-through, I couldn't be just myself again."
"In NF, the characters talk to each other with the kind of tenderness typically reserved for lovers."
Photo by Nwando Ebeledike
A world opening up
In the literary world, Osunde has been conferred a fascinating celebrity status. Their writing has the tenor of the fantastical and the bravery of a manifesto. Perhaps it is this combination that makes them as compelling as their work.
While on tour for Necessary Fiction, which began in Lagos and ended in the UK early this month, (they didn't do a tour for their equally smashing debut, Vagabonds! And so this was an opportunity to meet fans of their first book), Osunde was moved by the deep attachment many of their readers have developed with their work. Tattoos inspired by characters in their books, and the title of their viral Paris Review essay, personal stories, as well as nails fully inspired by their book, were some of the things readers shared with Osunde at different legs of the tour. It’s a devotion that’s affirming for the author.
"Some people might read this book, and what they take away is, I can be bolder."
Photo by Random House
"I think my work helps people realize that they're not crazy," Osunde posits. "I think my work helps people feel free and reimagine what life can be after loss. Whether that is the loss of romantic love or the loss of familial love. I think my book makes people understand that there is life after that."
And for Necessary Fiction, that is precisely what they want it to keep doing for their readers, especially at a time when marginalized identities on the continent are facing increased criminalization on a global level.
"Some people might read this book and what they take away is, I can be bolder," Osunde says. "Some people might read this book and think that what I need to take away is that I need to commit to my friends. There are so many things that can come out of it. And so, I'd say whatever is true for the person who's holding the book, I pray they find that and I hope they take it."
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