May
May has been such a fascinating month. This is an update letter, sharing some joys and highlights with you. It has been raining so much more (my favorite weather), I’ve been eating huge mangoes, spending a lot of time discovering new books. Each time, I made a meal this month, I was so been so pleased with the turn out. I’m going to make something with shredded beef next. The other night, a cow walked into the side of my car because the streetlights were off. Thankfully, I wasn’t moving at speed. The impact dented the metal on the bumper, but what I found hilarious is how the cow looked back with a flat nonchalance and just kept strolling. Felt like a scene out of a film. In some days, I’ll be attending a wedding I’ve been so excited about! And, before tour kicks off, I’m hosting an event a special event in Lagos. We’ve also started working on the audiobook, and receiving the auditions from so many talented people was a major highlight of my month; brought the book to life in new ways. We’ve now selected a cast of outstanding actors, and I can’t wait for you all to hear it. I have been responding to emails, sieving opportunities, sleeping for longer hours, slacking on movement, and dealing with some personal family drama that’s thankfully now resolving itself.
ALSO! I’m on the cover of Publishers Weekly (est 1872)! This moment meant so much to me because it’s my first time on the cover of a print magazine! The Rema story from March was the first time I wrote a cover story, and now two months later, my face and form are centered like boom! I love it for me. I know there’s more like this to come, but this one’s special, so I’m soaking it up.
Here’s a part of their review, and then right below that, the COVER:
“Osunde takes a kaleidoscopic view of queer Nigerian life in this vibrant tale of a diverse group of friends and relatives and their internal struggles… Osunde shines in their voice-driven narration, smoothly integrating Nigerian Pidgin into the novel’s crystalline prose… There’s much to love in this bighearted novel.”
On Friday the 23rd of May in Lagos, I will be hosting Vermillion: A Necessary Fiction x Eloghosa Osunde experience. It’s a shapeshifting space in collaboration with A Third Space, for their series The Artist’s Living Room. I really want you there!
The space will house a living room where I’ll be activating my first public reading from Necessary Fiction, a group exhibit, a signing of your copies of V!, food and drinks right out of my storyworld (we’ll be eating and drinking variants of what your favorite characters love, with many chances to put a personal twist on things); some dynamic never-before-seen merch you can get on the spot, opportunities to preorder the new novel, and then an after party on a rooftop. A plane onto itself, Vermillion unfurls under a Friday night sky. Come see us? The circle is only made full by you.
It really mattered to me to embed a group exhibit in the space, which will be centering work by these *extraordinary* artists: Fiyin Koko, Cynthia Ugwudike, Raks, Babatunde Tribe Akande, Affen Segun (who created the art that the NF cover was built around) and Olubunmi Atere.
The afterparty will be steered by the sound collective, No New Friends. I’m so excited to experience their music and move my body to the bass.
If you’re coming to the event, please be on time, and bring a thoughtful item with you.
For the Barter Station segment, there’ll be a circle of time carved out for everyone present to put something on the table, and take something else away. You can bring anything from a beloved annotated book to a precious rock to an aged pendant, a plant, a notebook you love, a Lego box set, a bracelet, a small mirror, or even some art you’d like to give to someone who values it. Whateverrrr you would like to gift a stranger or new friend or another artist. In return, you get to take whatever permits you to have it. The only currency is agreement between participants, so bring something worth exchanging; no empty hands!
See you soon? PS: this is an intimate event with set capacity and tickets will not be restocked after they’re sold out.
Link below:
I came across this review the other day, by a reader who just finished Necessary Fiction and I felt so understood. Something I was thinking about a lot while writing Necessary Fiction is how no one generation invented queerness or variants in sexuality. People have always been people, flesh and blood and hearts and minds and mess and range. There’s just more language & freedom & nuance as time rolls on. So, it was a strong goal of mine to write stories from inside that awareness. The review made me feel successful in my execution of that goal, and proud to have written a very Nigerian novel that is cross-generationally sensitive.
That’s it from me for now! I hope you’ve been well and May has been kind to you. Drop me a line if you’d like. A question, a recommendation, a thought. Anything.
Preorder links here:
Eloghosa xxxx
Can’t wait for the madness NNF is going to add to Vermillion.