20 Must-Read Queer Novels Set Outside the U.S., UK and Canada

Arjie is a queer boy who grows up in a wealthy Tamil family amidst violence and political unrest. Though the story focuses on Arjie’s coming of age and growing understanding of his own sexuality, it also explores family dynamics, racism, and Sri Lankan history. Selvadurai’s lyrical, straightforward prose is a powerful blend of the personal and the political.

This episodic novel is a meandering and melancholic look into contemporary queer life in Seoul. In a voice that is calm, slightly detached, sometimes wry and sometimes bleak, narrator Young recounts his friendship with his best friend from college, his strained relationship with his ill mother, his various romantic and sexual exploits, and his career as a writer. It’s a quiet, character-driven book made of ordinary moments, beautifully rendered.

Taiwanese novelist Qiu Miaojin is best known for experimental Notes of a Crocodile. Last Words From Montmartre, which was published after her death, is even more experimental. It’s a series of letters penned by an unnamed narrator, in which she meditates on art, fame, romance, death, travel, intimacy, longing. From these sometimes frenzied and dream-like missives, a love story between two women emerges, along with its catastrophic aftermath.

In a small ashram in Tamil Nadu, India, a boy with blue-skin is raised as the tenth incarnation of the god Vishnu. Kalki grows up in a world constructed by his parents, in which his life is defined by his role as a human incarnation of divinity. When the borders of that carefully constructed world begin to blur, and Kalki ventures outside the ashram, he finally beings to build a world for himself — on his own terms. I can’t say enough good things about this gorgeously written, intricately layered novel. It’s the kind of book that lingers on long after the last page.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: this is my favorite queer novel, ever. During the repressive Uruguayan dictatorship of the 1970s, five queer women find refugee in a small shack in an isolated coastal town. Over the next decades, as they fall in and out of love, fight for their right to survive, weather breakups, mistakes, misunderstandings, and loss, they become each other’s family. It’s a beautiful song of a book, an ode to queer survival, queer friendship, and the magic of queer spaces.

This novel opens with two young men dying after they’ve wounded each other in a knife fight. They are each visited by visions of their dead fathers, and as they wrestle with the ghosts of their pasts, the complicated story of their lifelong rivalry comes to light.

Dennis-Benn’s debut is a bleak look at three generations of Jamaican women, all of whom are struggling under the weight of sexism, homophobia, racism, and an exploitative tourist industry. The novel centers on Margot, who is determined to give teenage sister a better life at all costs. But she’s also keeping secrets, including her love for another woman, and soon the bonds that tie her to her sister and mother begin to fray. This isn’t a a book for the faint of heart, though it’s worth the read. If you’re looking for something a little less hopeless, Dennis-Benn’s second novel, Patsy, is also wonderful.

When Camila leaves her small hometown for the big city to go to university, she finds a welcoming community of other trans women, mostly sex workers, who take her in. At the heart of this unconventional family is Auntie Encarna, a nearly 200-year-old being who looks out for all of them. It’s a beautiful, lightly magical story about self-discovery and trans friendship.

If you’re looking for a queer international road trip novel, this book is for you. When her husband is called to join the army, China Iron rejoices in her newfound freedom and sets off across the country with her new friend Liz, a Scottish woman who soon becomes her lover. This is a wild romp of a story, a coming-of-age cross-country adventure full of queer awakening and gorgeous descriptions of the Argentine countryside.

This stunning novel is about three Nigerian women, Kambirinachi and her twin daughters, Taiye and Kehinde. The story moves back and forth between the past and the present, following the sisters as they move from country to country, fall in love, and build careers, all the while deeply missing each other. It’s a quiet but unforgettable story about sisterhood, forgiveness, food, queerness, healing, and what it means to belong to a person or a place.

Emezi does what they do best with this novel: turn expected western notions about queerness and identity on their heads. The story opens with the death of Vivek — somebody leaves his body in front of his mother’s house. From there, Vivek’s life comes into focus from a variety of POVs: Vivek, his cousin, his mother, and various other friends and family members It’s a beautiful but unpredictable story about friendship, first love, and the messy realities of close communities.

A modern classic of Nigerian literature, Under the Udala Trees is a queer coming of age story set against the backdrop of civil war. This is brutal book, as it deals with homophobic laws and homophobic violence. But Okparanta writes beautifully and truthfully, telling a story the world badly needs to hear.

In the first work of Cameroonian writer Max Lobe to be translated into English, a young man sets off on a journey across the country in search of his older brother, who is on his way to Europe, hoping to make it as a footballer. The story unfolds in a series of vignettes that reveal the ups and downs of ordinary life for a queer man in Cameroon.

In this dazzling blend of myth, magic, and reality, an eclectic cast of characters, all of whom live on the fringes of Nigerian society, come to life. The novel feels symphonic at times, as it moves back and forth among the POVs of the titular vagabonds — the queer folks, poor folks, those who are fleeing violence, who live on the streets, whose lives are visible only on the margins. As all of these characters struggle to survive, they find comfort and support in one another.

This is a breathtaking portrait of a queer family that stays together despite heartbreak, danger, war, and many messy mistakes. In 1910, queer couple Eve and Julia arrive in Vienna to start a new life together. They soon find family among the fellow tenants of their apartment block. What follows is a moving story about parenthood, marriage, and impossible choices, unfolding across decades in an array of POVs.

This unusual, fast-paced, nonlinear novel follows a group of queer twentysomethings over the course of a weekend in Nuuk, the capital of Greenland. They fall in and out of love, deal with family and friendship, and try to figure out who they are and what they want.

This is a bleak but compelling novel about womanhood, power, and queer love. After a brutal storm kills all the men in a small Scandinavian village in 1617, the women continue on independently, living their lives outside of patriarchal authority. But when a man arrives from Scotland to rid the town of the witches rumored to live there, they must fight for their survival in a whole new way.

This is a sprawling epic of a novel that explores migration, Iranian history, identity, and more. Kimiâ Sadr left Iran with her family at age 10 and settled in France. Now in her twenties, sitting in the waiting room of a fertility clinic in Paris, and pondering the prospect of parenthood, Kimiâ begins to recall the stories of her ancestors. What follows is a dizzying series of vignettes and moments.

This thoughtful and observant novel is heartbreaking, funny, tender, and wise. Mina is a trans Lebanese American doctor who spends a week volunteering at the refugee camps on the island of Lesbos. While there, she meets up with her brother for the first time in years, becomes close with a Syrian woman, and reminisces about her own life. It’s a quiet, character-driven book overflowing with human emotion.

In this YA love story, two queer Aboriginal boys help each other find the courage to be their true selves. Jackson’s life with his family on the Mish is about as ordinary as ever — until the holidays bring not only his visiting relatives, but a mysterious boy. As the two become close, Jackson finally confronts the truths about himself that he’s been avoiding for so long.