Akwaeke Emezi

Akwaeke Emezi is a Nigerian author and artist whose genre-defying fiction, non-fiction, and young adult novels have established them as one of the most original and daring literary voices of their generation. Their work explores identity, spirituality, embodiment, and the experience of being between worlds — culturally, spiritually, and in terms of gender. Born in Umuahia, Nigeria, Emezi is of Igbo and Tamil descent. They identify as nonbinary and use they/them pronouns. Their identity as an ogbanje — in Igbo cosmology, a spirit that is born into a human body — is central to their work and their understanding of themselves. Freshwater (2018) was their debut — a semi-autobiographical novel about a young Nigerian woman whose body is inhabited by multiple spirits, drawing on Igbo mythology to explore the experience of existing across spiritual and physical planes. The novel was widely acclaimed for its boldness, its beauty, and its refusal to conform to Western narrative expectations. Pet (2019) was a young adult novel that won a Stonewall Book Award. The Death of Vivek Oji (2020) was a mystery set in Nigeria that explored gender, family, and grief. Bitter (2022) was a young adult companion to Pet. Dear Senthuran (2021) was a non-fiction memoir-in-letters. Emezi writes with a spiritual intensity and formal inventiveness that sets them apart from virtually every other contemporary writer. Their prose is lyrical and urgent, and their exploration of the boundaries between the physical and spiritual, the human and the divine, is profound. The audiobook editions of Emezi's works are compelling and distinctive. Their books and audiobooks are essential for readers who want fiction that challenges every assumption about identity, embodiment, and what it means to be human.