The Death of Vivek Oji

The Death of Vivek Oji presents queer desire—that is, any desire beyond cis-heterosexist prescription—as both dangerous and life giving. In Chapter 13, Osita articulates both the thrill and fear of the kiss he shares with a male university student. When the university student approaches Osita the day after their kiss, Osita is amazed by his enthusiasm, mystified that this man isn’t afraid to be open about their connection. This reveals that it is not just internalized anti-gay bias at work behind Osita’s denial of his sexuality, but also his understanding of the violence with which queer desire is met in the world at large. Osita fears not only the social ramifications of accepting his full sexuality but also the physical harm that might befall him. This is the same physical risk that Vivek accepts each time he ventures into the world as Nnemdi.

The novel accentuates Osita’s avoidance, his inability to fully embrace his desire for men: “I deliberately kept my mind empty, except for him, because I knew as soon as I started to think again, I might go mad from what I had just done” (149). However, Osita also describes the kiss with the university student as life-giving: “I didn’t know how to explain it,” Osita narrates, “the thing that the kiss had exhumed in me, the way it was loud, the way it wouldn’t be quiet” (146).