Set in the northern region of Africa and the Saharan desert region known as the Sahel, ONLY THE LIE IS TRUE is the harrowing story of a contemporary immigrant's struggle to reach freedom by boat across the Mediterranean, far from the oppression and violence of her home country, Nigeria. Moreover, the protagonist of this first novel, Nour, is in transition from male to female, one of many queer and transgendered people fleeing from certain imprisonment, torture, and possibly death from a society where to claim such an identity is forbidden and illegal. This novel, based on a true story of a transgender immigrant, provides i chilling detail the realities of the immigrant detention camps, the smugglers and their compatriots who prey on the naivete of the refugees, and the complex network of trust and betrayal that makes up the world of the camp operations. Nour is a fiery protagonist who must first join forces with the smuggling operation in the refugee detention camp on the Libyan border in which she is held in order to obtain freedom, all while maintaining her tenuous disguise as a man.