This project explores how literary imaginations of friendship can help us rethink our relationships, strengthen our communities, and support democracies in troubled times. Using insight from novels and short fiction from Non-Western contexts, I show how these imaginaries of friendship can challenge old ideas and spark new ways of coming together. Through this fresh view, this project aims to inspire a stronger, more resilient form of democratic solidarity that meets the challenges of growing polarisation, authoritarian threats, and the instability of our world.