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In his debut short story collection, Vincent Anioke explores themes of masculinity and repressed desires through the lens of (un)conditional love. Set largely in Nigeria, Perfect Little Angels shows us imperfect characters looking for connection and salvation — an addict seeking a fresh start in pottery class, the unravelling of a mother’s world after a confession from her son. What happens when our personal desires conflict with the duties we are bound to? Anioke’s characters confront this dilemma and more through his brilliantly imagined tales. 

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In 1960s Cairo, Tarek’s entire life is already written. He’ll be a doctor like his father, marry, and have children. He does just that until a patient’s son, Ali, enters his life and spins it upside down. The turn of the millennium finds Tarek living as a doctor in Montreal, where someone is writing about him and to him, piecing together a past he wants only to forget. From Cairo’s grand boulevards and hidden alleys during the reign of Nasser to Montreal’s grim winter in the early 2000s, What I Know About You tells the heartbreaking story of a family torn apart by an epic love.  

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Ezzy and Grey are Métis cousins passing their days in an old trailer playing games and cracking cans of cheap beer. Grey, once a passionate advocate for change, has been hardened by an activist culture she thinks has become performative. One night she decides on a bold act of protest — capture a herd of bison from a national park and set them free in downtown Edmonton. She enlists Ezzy, who is hopelessly devoted to her but eager to avoid the authorities. As Grey becomes increasingly single-minded in her calling, their actions result in devastating consequences. 

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Canisia Lubrin’s debut fiction work departs from the infamous “Code Noir,” a set of historical decrees originally passed in 1685 by King Louis XIV of France defining the conditions of slavery in the French colonial empire. The original Code had 59 articles; Code Noir has 59 linked fictions ranging in style from contemporary realism to dystopia, from futuristic fantasy to historical fiction, and are filled with characters who desire to live beyond the ruins of the past. The stories are accompanied by black-and-white drawings by acclaimed visual artist Torkwase Dyson. 

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Glue doesn’t care about much. He returns to Hong Kong, the city he grew up in, and teaches ESL to placate his parents. But he shows up hungover to class, barely stays awake, and prefers to spend his time smoking weed until dawn breaks. As he watches the city he loves fall — the protests, the brutal arrests — life continues around him, so he drinks more and picks more fights. The very little he does care about are his sister, who deals with Hong Kong’s demise by getting engaged to a rich immigration consultant; his on-and-off-again relationship with a woman who steals things from him; and memories of someone he once met in Canada. When the government tightens its grip, language starts to lose all meaning, and Glue finds himself pulled into an unsettling venture. 

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M.G. Vassanji draws deeply on his own transnational upbringing to explore the unique challenges and perspectives born from leaving one’s home to resettle in a new land. The question of identity, of how to configure and see oneself, is one such challenge faced. But Vassanji suggests that a more fundamental and slippery endeavor than establishing one’s identity is how, if ever, we can establish a sense of belonging. Can we ever truly belong in a new home? Did we ever truly belong in the home we left? Where exactly do we belong? Nowhere, Exactly examines the space between identity and belonging, the immigrant experience of both loss and gain, and the weight of memory and nostalgia, guilt and hope, felt by so many.

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