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  • Freshwater by Akwaeke Emezi book cover
  • Freshwater by Akwaeke Emezi book cover
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Freshwater

by Akwaeke Emezi

A divided sense of self

$16.48 USD
$27.47 USD $16.48 USD
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Awards & Recognition

  • Award recognition

    Finalist for the PEN/Hemingway Award for a Debut Novel

    Finalist for the debut novel award

  • Editorial selection

    A New York Times Notable Book

    Named a New York Times Notable Book

  • Author recognition

    National Book Foundation “5 Under 35” Honoree

    Named a “5 Under 35” Honoree

AlbakiReads Editorial

A divided sense of self

Ada’s life is shaped by a family’s concern over her childhood behavior and by the separate selves that emerge as she grows up. Her move from southern Nigeria to the United States for college marks a turning point: a traumatic campus event intensifies those divisions, and the selves begin to exert greater control. The novel’s premise brings questions of identity, agency, and protection into close relation, while its movement between Nigeria and America connects Ada’s inner experience with her changing surroundings.

Good fit for readers who enjoy

  • Readers interested in novels about identity and divided selves.
  • Readers seeking fiction that moves between southern Nigeria and the United States.
  • Readers interested in stories that address trauma and agency.

Themes

Identity and selfhoodAgency and controlTraumaFamily concernMigration and displacement

Based on publisher information and book metadata.

Book overview

A National Book Foundation "5 Under 35" Honoree
Finalist for the PEN/Hemingway Award for a Debut Novel
Shortlisted for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize
A New York Times Notable Book

The astonishing debut novel from the acclaimed bestselling author of The Death of Vivek Oji, You Made a Fool of Death with Your Beauty, and Pet.

Freshwater tells the story of Ada, an unusual child who is a source of deep concern to her southern Nigerian family. Young Ada is troubled, prone to violent fits. Born "with one foot on the other side," she begins to develop separate selves within her as she grows into adulthood. And when she travels to America for college, a traumatic event on campus crystallizes the selves into something powerful and potentially dangerous, making Ada fade into the background of her own mind as these alters--now protective, now hedonistic--move into control.

Written with stylistic brilliance and based in the author's realities, Freshwater dazzles with ferocious energy and serpentine grace.

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