Winner of the 2024 Orwell Prize for political fiction, My Friends is not your typical immigrant tale in which the protagonist ultimately finds a semblance of security, stability and peace in the bosom of their adoptive home. Here, rather, fear is a pervasive, palpable feature for exiled Libyan writers and dissenters.

Or, the brazen grift of Troy Onyango, founder and editor of the literary site Lolwe.

Xaviere's novel is a welcome addition to the growing list of literature centring queer lives in African societies eager to deny their existence with claims that they are un-African or misguided vessels of Western immorality.

Here are four books on precolonial Africa, Palestine, and Nazi-occupied Poland guaranteed to illuminate your mind and broaden your world.