As You Like It: The Gerald Kraak Anthology Volume II

As You Like It: The Gerald Kraak Prize Anthology Volume II (2018) is an anthology of fiction, nonfiction, essays, and photography published by the Johannesburg-based publisher Jacana Media. Comprising the pieces shortlisted for Jacana Media's 2018 Gerald Kraak Prize honoring African works on the topics of gender, human rights, and sexuality, the anthology features 17 pieces, including the eventual winner, Pwaangulongii Dauod's essay, "Africa's Future Has No Space for Stupid Black Men."

In "Africa's Future Has No Space for Stupid Black Men,” Dauod discusses the mortal danger facing gays and lesbians in Nigeria. "Cliché, but the true nature of things: if you are found to be gay in Nigeria, you are on your way to prison, to rot away for the next six hundred and something weeks of your fucking life. And that’s if you’re lucky." He goes on to recount his friendship with a young man, C. Boy. In 2013 at the age of 24, C. Boy opens a secret gay nightclub, Party BomBom, in Zaria, Nigeria, a midsized city of about a half-million people. More than just a nightclub, PBB raises money to provide shelter for homeless or otherwise troubled members. It also raises money for college tuition for its members. Unfortunately, C. Boy also suffers from depression. Combined with the stress of operating Party BomBom and keeping both the organization and himself financially afloat, C. Boy kills himself in 2015. He leaves a suicide note that reads, "Africa's Future Has No Space for Stupid Black Men."

Ugandan journalist Isaac Otidi Amuke’s "Facing the Mediterranean" explores the challenges queer Ugandans face in seeking asylum from repression. In Uganda's capital city of Kampala, tabloids publish the names of those suspected of being gay, putting their lives at great risk. Like several other African countries, this homophobia becomes institutionalized with the passage of the Anti-Homosexual Act prohibiting same-sex relations and imposing penalties that can include life imprisonment. Fortunately, the bill is overturned by Ugandan courts, but life for LGBTQ+ individuals in Uganda is extraordinarily dangerous. Many of them seek refugee status through the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. But of the 13 million refugees worldwide, the UNHCR says it is only able to resettle 7 or 8 percent of them annually. Furthermore, UNHCR spokespeople believe they must prioritize other vulnerable refugees such as unaccompanied minors and the terminally ill. Yet the situation facing many LGBTQ+ Ugandans is so dire that many prefer to live in a refugee camp for years at a time or to sneak across the border into Kenya to live in the Nairobi slums.



Zambian Ghanaian writer Efemia Chela writes about her annual Christmastime ritual of rereading Maggie Nelson's LGBTQ+-themed memoir, The Argonauts, in her story "Sailing with the Argonauts." Christmas is her "straightest time of year" due to the time she spends with her homophobic family, particularly her mother. To cope, Chela loses herself in Nelson's writing. She is particularly inspired by Nelson's willingness "to be more radically queer regardless of the consequences and because of the consequences."

In "The Shea Prince," Nigerian writer and journalist Chike Frankie Edozien travels by bus to Tamale, Ghana's third largest city, to write a piece of journalism on economic development. He is distracted, however, by "Heartthrob Will." Will belongs to the Gonja people; his mother was a shea farmer who managed to make enough money to keep him in school. Although Will has a wife, that doesn't stop Chike and Will from having a long-distance relationship between Accra and Tamale, a 12-hour bus ride. Through Will, Chike explains the complicated identity issues of closeted gay men married to women.

Nigerian writer Kiprop Kimutai’s short story "The Man on the Bridge" features a protagonist who—like Will in the previous entry—is a closeted gay man married to a woman. Kwambai and Chela are a well-off married couple with two children, Kimaiyo and Chebet. Although tensions are high with his wife, Kwambai loves his children too much to consider abandoning his family. Things become even more complicated when Kwambai finds himself falling in love with a man named Franco. Kimaiyo and Chebet are staying with Chela's mother. One night during a fight, Chela says she is leaving, adding that their children will never step foot in their house again. The next day, Franco comes over, and he and Kwambai have sex. Afterward, Chela comes back unexpectedly, and Franco hides upstairs. The story ends ambiguously without revealing whether Kwambai chooses life with Chela and his children, or whether Chela finds Franco hiding.



Other stories, poems, and essays include Sarah Lubala's "Portrait of a Girl at the Border Wall," David Medalie's "Borrowed by the Wind," and "XXYX Africa" by Nick Hadikwa Mwaluko.