Currently-lives in Brooklyn, New York CityĪkwaeke Emezi is an Igbo and Tamil writer and artist based in liminal spaces.

Awards-Commonwealth Short Story Prize-Africa.

Unsettling, heart-wrenching, dark, and powerful, Freshwater dazzles with ferocious energy and serpentine grace, heralding the arrival of a fierce new literary voice. Written with stylistic brilliance and based in the author’s realities, this raw and extraordinary debut explores the metaphysics of identity and being, plunging the reader into the mysteries of self. When Ada travels to America for college, a traumatic event crystallizes the selves into something more powerful.Īs Ada fades into the background of her own mind and these alters-now protective, now hedonistic-move into control, Ada’s life spirals in a dangerous direction. Born 'with one foot on the other side,' she begins to develop separate selves. Her parents successfully prayed her into existence, but something must have gone awry, as the young Ada becomes a troubled child, prone to violent fits of anger and grief.īut Ada turns out to be more than just volatile. But it’s also a story of survival and strength and of coming to terms with what it means to survive.As an infant in southern Nigeria, she is a source of deep concern to her family.

It is not an easy experience it’s a story of trauma and violence and heartbreak. Freshwater embeds you deep into Ada’s mind, demanding that you feel what this young woman feels, that you see the world the way she does.

But then something vivid and clear happens - Asughara turns the tables on another domineering man with her unbridled sexuality, say - and Emezi’s prose calls the reader to attention. In those parts of the book, the reader is left floating in a sea of language which sounds pretty, but which doesn’t seem to be actively describing anything. Some scenes lack a sense of place or a narrative thrust. Freshwater at times feels a little too unmoored from reality. What is reading, but inviting another voice to take up residence in your head? Emezi’s voice is hypnotic and powerful and imaginative, leaving the reader unsure of what in the story is real and what is not. These voices in Freshwater - the chorus of personalities - should feel familiar to anyone who spends a lot of time lost in books.

Fresh water akwaeke emezi