A hopeful note from Africa

I want to thank Lee Levine very warmly for alerting me to an informative, inspiring Feb. 21 New York Times article titled "The Needle Has Been Moved." It explores the state of queer literature in Africa which, despite persecution of the LGBTQ community in many countries, is booming--especially in Nigeria. I must confess that I only knew one of the authors cited: Chiké Frankie Edozien, a 53-year-old Nigerian, whose 2017 memoir, Lives of Great Men: Living and Loving as an African Gay Man, I read and nominated for our reading list a few years ago. (I may renominate it this fall.) Here are a few other writers cited in the article whose work I want to check out:

Arinze Ifeakandu, Nigerian, 29. His debut short story collection, God's Children Are Little Broken Things, came out last year; it won the Dylan Thomas Prize for young writers and was a Lambda Literary Prize finalist, among other honors.

Abdellah Taïa, Moroccan, 51. The author of nine novels (he has made two films, as well), he is often considered the first openly gay Arab writer and filmmaker.

Damon Galgut, South African, 60. Shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 2003 and 2010, he won it in 2011 for The Promise.