( Read Excerpt)įor additional material on Igbo ontology, check out the Reading List! 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 intothe mysteries of self.

As 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. When Ada travels to America for college, a traumatic event crystallizes the selves into something more powerful. Born “with one foot on the other side,” she begins to develop separate selves. But Ada turns out to be more than just volatile. 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. As an infant in southern Nigeria, she is a source of deep concern to her family. THE OTHERWISE AWARD WINNER (FORMERLY THE TIPTREE)Īda has always been unusual.

Freshwater by akwaeke emezi