12 Must Read Novels That Tell The Other Side Of Men
These novels show us what it means to be you in every shade of truth
You don't need to be gay or queer to feel like you've been pretending about things. Or to know what it's like to keep something buried.
Beyond the identity politics presented in these 12 novels, the list of reads is about being human, and sometimes, about being a man in a way that doesn't play by the rules. If you are looking for a mirror, for brutal honest, about self expression and sharp writing that speak the truth, pick one of these novels as your next read.
Before we dive into the list, know that "gay novels" are not just about sex and desire. (Some even contemplate the distinction of novels as gay novels but we'll discuss it some other day) These novels are about fear, freedom, about what happens when you do not fit the script or the version of manhood you've been taught to perform all along. In a way they are an introspective exercise for men, whether they are cis or not.
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Mohanaswamy by Vasudhendra
A collection of Kannada stories interconnected to the life of Mohanaswamy, a middle-class gay man in conservative India, this work of translation from Kannada by Rashmi Terdal, is an honest, melancholic, and unvarnished mapping of queerness through urban rebellion. It is about everyday survival.
My Father's Garden by Hansda Sowvendra Shekhar
A quiet, internal novel about young Adivasi doctor navigating caste, queerness and heartbreak, My Father's Garden is told in fragments and traces how love and identity unravel in everyday India, not necessarily in urban landscapes but even in anonymous towns and rural postings.
Cobalt Blue by Sachin Kundalkar
A Marathi novel translated into English by Jerry Pinto, Cobalt Blue, is told through two first-person narratives- a brother and sister who both fall in love with a young man moves in as a paying guest only to unravel the family and break the silence around longing, silence, and invisible lines queerness draws inside households. The book was also adapted for screen starring Prateek Smita Patil.
Call Me By Your Name by Andre Aciman
A summer in Italy for an American Philosophy student working on his visit to scholar takes him on sudden course. One that leads to an unexpected romance. Aciman's prose burns slow and deep, turning a fleeting love into something eternal. It's about desire, memory, and the ache of what never fully belonged to you. Yeah, it is that Timothee Chalamet movie.
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Funny Boy by Shyam Selvadurai
Set in Sri Lanka on the verge of civil war, Arjie grows up Tamil, queer, and different. A coming-of-age novel, Funny Boy, captures the innocence of childhood, the violence of civil societies, and the unspoken tensions between desire, family, and identity.
Boyfriend by Dr. R. Raj Rao
Picture the 1990s Bombay. Boyfriend is a radical novel that follows a gay professor's relationship with a Dalit man, it is raw in its depiction of sexual politics, masculinity and caste system and urban gay life that fewer Indian novels dared to back in 2003.
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Trying To Grow by Firdaus Kanga
A coming-of-age tale about a Brit, a disabled gay boy growing up Parsi in 1970s Bombay. Kanga writes with biting wit, fearless sexuality, and sharp observations- challenging physical, sexual, and societal norms with humour and heart.
The Carpet Weaver by Nemat Sadat
in 1970s Tehran, Kanishka is caught between religious tradition and queer longing. As secrets unravel, exile looms. A fictional mirror of his own life, Sadat's novel presents the first Afghan to come out of the closet publicity.
The Quilt by Ismat Chughtai
Originally Lihaaf and published in 1942, also nearly banned, the short story hints at same-sex intimacy between women, as seen through a child's naive eyes. Chughtai was tried for obscenity and acquitted, but the story remains explosive.
The Man Who Would Be Queen by Hoshang Merchant
More poetic autofiction that traditional novels, Merchant's work defies genre as it is a part diary, part philosophical riff, part confessional. Through shifting voices, the author reflects on gender, exile, and beauty with the soul of a poet and sharpness of an outsider.
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Maurice by E.M Forster
Written in secret before homosexuality was legal in Britain, E.M Forster's Maurice is the story of a young man torn between social convention and forbidden love. Instead of tragedy, Forster gives us rare defiance- a gay romance with a hopeful ending, quietly radical for its time.
The Picture of Dorian Grey by Oscar Wilde
A beautiful man sells his soul to stay young while a hidden portrait decays with every sin. Oscar Wilde's only novel dripping with artifice, homoerotic tension and coded as rebellion against Victorian morality is a fantasy-gothic novel and is his most sold book.
