QTIBIPOC Stories
Pride month is celebrated every June as a way to recognise and honour the contributions of LGBTQIA+ people to our cultures and communities.
This month, we are reading and celebrating stories by QTIBIPOC people – that is, Queer, Trans and/or Intersex people, who are also Black, Indigenous and/or people of colour. These books are full of life and joy, good humour and sadness, grief and love.
Martyr!
Kaveh Akbar
Cyrus Shams is a young man grappling with violence and loss, whose obsession with martyrs leads him to face the mysteries of his past.
The Black Flamingo
Dean Atta
The Black Flamingo shows us that sometimes, we need to take charge, to stand up wearing pink feathers – to show ourselves to the world in bold colour.
Talk To Me: There’s No Greater Act of Defiance Than Using Your Voice
Munroe Bergdorf
An empowering book about tackling tricky conversations with confidence. No person is too small to make a difference, and no voice is either. Talk to Me gives you the tools to navigate tough discussions, to change people’s minds, to accept when you’re wrong, and to know when to step away.
Patsy
Nicole Dennis-Benn
Passionate, moving and fiercely urgent, Patsy is a haunting depiction of immigration and womanhood – and threads of love stretching across years and oceans.
Guapa
Saleem Haddad
Set over the course of 24 hours, Guapa follows Rasa, a gay man living in an unnamed Arab country, as he tries to carve out a life for himself in the midst of political and social upheaval.
Book Title 6
Author Name
As Elsie’s fragile world spirals out of control, she reaches for rocky foundations to try and steady herself on her path and not fall through the cracks. But sometimes what you’ve been searching for has been there all along. Can Elsie see it in time?
Book Title 7
Author Name
In this landmark work, Jason Okundaye meets an elder generation of Black gay men and finds a spirited community full of courage, charisma and good humour, hungry to tell its past – of nightlife, resistance, political fights, loss, gossip, sex, romance and vulgarity. Through their conversations he seeks to reconcile the Black and gay narratives of Britain, narratives frequently cleaved as distinct and unrelated.
Greta & Valdin
Rebecca K Reilly
Valdin is still in love with his ex-boyfriend Xabi, who used to drive around Auckland in a ute but now drives around Buenos Aires instead. Greta is in love with her fellow English tutor Holly, who doesn't know how to pronounce Greta’s surname: Vladisavljevic. From their Auckland apartment, brother and sister must navigate the intricate paths of modern romance as well as weather and the small storms of their eccentric Maori-Russian-Catalonian family. This beguiling and hilarious novel by Rebecca K. Reilly is set in a world that is deeply familiar (but also a bit sexier and more stylish than the real thing).
Juliet Takes a Breath
Gabby Rivera
Will Juliet be able to figure out her life over the course of one magical summer? Is that even possible? Or is she running away from all the problems that seem too big to handle? With more questions than answers, Juliet takes on Portland, Harlowe and, most importantly, herself.
Cinema Love
Jiaming Tang
Spanning three timelines – post-socialist China, 1980s Chinatown, and contemporary New York – Cinema Love is a tender epic about men and women who find themselves in forbidden and frustrated relationships as they grapple with the past and their unspoken desires.