‘Thoughtful, emotional, ardent, funny, and hot … I think many will find that inextinguishable, ferocious need to keep going within the pages of No God but Us. I am so glad it exists, and thank God it does.’ — Chicago Review of Books

‘Compassionate without veering into sentimentality, the novel explores migration, identity and chosen family with quiet emotional precision, asking what it truly means to build a home from exile.’ — Service95

‘A sprawling, tender debut about queer refugees finding each other across continents … but those expecting Delbar and Mansur to ride off into the sunset together will be disappointed. The novel is too wise for such easy comforts. Their connection is real but provisional, like everything else in exile. At its core, this is that rare thing: a political novel that remembers to be a human one.’ —Kirkus Reviews

‘The buzz around Bobuq Sayed’s debut novel is mighty loud. But when you read the opening chapter … you’ll see what all the fuss is about. This book is alive.’ — The Guardian (AUS)

‘Vibrant, hilarious, and sharply critical, presenting a rich and real set of characters reeling across the world.’ — Mizna

‘[An] impressive debut … Sayed skillfully balances the personal with the political.’ — Publishers Weekly

‘A fascinating love story. The author explores romantic and political awakening, and the book is full of subtle insights into the nuances of queer resistance and identity. A moving and eye-opening debut.’ — The Sydney Morning Herald

‘Embraces queerness in all its complexity. A debut worth reading.’ — The Skinny

‘Deeply felt and irreverent, No God but Us asks what might happen to one’s consciousness when mangled by the forces of empire. At its heart, this is a novel about family—chosen and not—and I am lucky to count this story among my literary kin.’ — Aria Aber, author of Good Girl

‘The courage required to write such a book, particularly for a debut author, is no small feat. Bobuq’s pen could move mountains.’ — JJ Bola, author of The Selfless Act of Breathing

‘Extraordinarily moving, astute, and often very funny, No God but Us is an exhilarating debut from a writer whose work I’ll always want to read.’ — R. O. Kwon, author of Exhibit and The Incendiaries

‘Bobuq Sayed moves between voices and continents with rare confidence, tracing how exile and desire shape who we become. This is a story alive to contradiction—ferocious in its longing, unsparing in its honesty, and deeply attuned to the ways love and belief survive their own undoing.’ — Garrard Conley, author of Boy Erased and All the World Beside

‘No God but Us explores the bonds we create and destroy around love, desire, country, and community with startling honesty, boldly interrogating the sacrifices one must make to live according to the truth of the human heart. A simply dazzling and unforgettable debut.’ — Patricia Engel, author of Infinite Country and The Faraway World

‘Impish yet deadly serious, No God but Us is a tessellation of borders and longings, love and danger—a novel that stays in the body long after its final page has turned.’ — Sarah Thankam Mathews, author of All This Could Be Different

‘In a powerful debut, Bobuq Sayed reveals how forces of rejection from state and family meet the alchemy of attraction, desire, and belonging … A new kind of novel, with vast geographies of nation and heart.’ — Sarah Schulman, author of The Fantasy and Necessity of Solidarity

‘No God but Us moves beyond the family’s carbon-copy dedication to the state and ultimately returns us, with impressive grace and compassion, to one of fiction’s central concerns: our attempts to imagine formative change against the banal expectations of power.’ — Joseph Earl Thomas, author of Sink and God Bless You, Otis Spunkmeyer

‘A polyphonic dream of a novel, spanning borders, language, and time, with rich, lyrical prose that brings to life the harrowing journeys of its protagonists. Sayed beautifully captures the pains of dislocation and hierarchy, gifting us with a work that has been sorely missing from the queer and literary canons.’ — Alejandro Varela, author of Middle Spoon and The Town of Babylon

‘Mischievous and assured, writing across faith, exile, and desire, Sayed brings wit, nerve, and a novelist’s instinct for where the sacred and the profane most fruitfully collide. A brilliantly subversive book.’ — Zain Khalid, author of Brother Alive

REVIEW: No God but Us — Rain Taxi

REVIEW: No God but Us — The Skinny

An Interview with Bobuq Sayed — F(r)iction

July’s Must-Reads — Service95

Best Australian books out in June — The Guardian (AUS)

REVIEW: What Choice Do We Have? On Bobuq Sayed’s ‘No God but Us’ — Chicago Review of Books

The Summer Reading Guide — The Atlantic

REVIEW: No God but Us — Kirkus Reviews

REVIEW: No God but Us — Publishers Weekly

30 New SWANA Books to Read in 2026 — Mizna

FEATURE: Spring 2026 Writers to Watch: Bobuq Sayed — Publishers Weekly

The Most Anticipated Debut Books of 2026 — Debutiful

Most Anticipated LGBTQ+ Adult Fiction — LGBTQ Reads

2026’s Must-Read LGBTQ+ Books — Woke News

The 10 Most Anticipated LGBTQ+ Books of 2026 — Them.us

Traci Thomas’ Most Anticipated Books of 2026 — SheReads

Contemporary Fiction Views: Best of season arrives — Daily Kos)

30 July 2026
Paperback / 9781914221361
ebook / 9781914221378
198 × 129 mm
308 pages