A beautifully rendered, mesmerising memoir full of grit of heart, A Boy Who Loved Me by Wilson Semitte begins with a chance encounter at G-A-Y club in London in the early 2000’s between a Ugandan man and an English boy, leading to a relationship that spans for nearly two decades.

With acuity and precision, Wilson writes about his queerness in his home country of Uganda and the political and social implications of coming out and coming of age in a country of turmoil and violence. This sprawling memoir traces Wilson Semitti’s decades-long journey from Uganda to the far reaches of the world—Thailand, China, South Africa, and beyond—without letting the sickle-cell chronic disease he was born with define him.

The people that come in and out of his life shape his experiences and help him make meaning from his path, but none more than the boy who loved him.