The Black Flamingo

Dean Atta
Hachette

Be the bricks, be the sand.
Be the river, be the ocean.
Remember your life is not a movie.
Accept you
will be coming out for your whole life.

The Black Flamingo, poet Dean Atta’s stunning debut novel, is a mixed-media masterpiece about coming out, coming of age, and coming to terms with yourself. With illustrations by Anshika Khullar, Atta tells the story of Michael, a boy growing up in London in the present day. Through a scrapbook of free verse, individual poems, texts, and illustrations, Michael recounts the story of his life from his birth to his debut as a drag performer at university. Michael is born in 1999 to a Greek mother and a Jamaican father. Though his father leaves when he is a baby, Michael retains a connection with his extended Jamaican family.

Throughout the novel, Michael grapples with mixedness—what it means to be all of two things, rather than two halves. Michael’s relationship with his best friend, Daisy, is fraught with discoveries—that mixedness does not mean the same thing to everyone, that being gay means coming out, taking risks your whole life. Through family vacations, sleepovers, and nights out, Michael and Daisy eventually have a falling out, and Michael finds himself adrift. 

Michael leaves London for university in Brighton. Never feeling black enough, or Greek enough, or gay enough, Michael joins the drag society in pursuit of a place to belong. 

make up my mind, 
I’m going to do that,
whatever that is,
whatever that means.

Atta’s narration of Michael’s journey to becoming himself is expertly, empathically structured to burn and soothe, shock and warm the reader. It is an ode to inner beauty, an instruction manual for self love. The Black Flamingo is a coming-of-age novel reimagined for today’s teenagers and adults alike. Atta’s verse is imaginative and easy to follow. While the structure is fairly straightforward, the content is complex, sophisticated, and deeply emotional. It serves as a reminder that your voice, no matter how many times it has been silenced, can always be found again. Through Michael’s words, Atta’s voice comes through with gut-wrenching clarity. Queer people of colour face violence, rejection, erasure—but Michael, a fictional teenager leaping off of the page with emotion and realism, finds strength in unbelonging. 

The book sends a crucial message—it is more than okay, it is superb to be you. You are perfect. You are beautiful. You belong. 

—Rachel Chung