Hi there! How was your week? Mine passed by really fast. I can’t believe we are almost at the end of the month. How has your 2024 been so far?
Here’s my reading highlight:
Freshwater by Akwaeke Emezi
4 stars
When I first started reading the book, I wondered if it was based on the author’s experience. There was something about the book’s theme, the conviction and the emotions expressed that were likely to have been based on personal experience. Towards the end of the book, after Googling, I was correct. It is an autobiographical novel. The author identifies as transgender and as an ogbanje. Emezi has also been public about having a double mastectomy and hysterectomy to feel more at ease with their lack of gender.
This book isn’t to be read lightly. Trigger warning: death, suicide, sexual assault, rape, alcoholism, self harm. When I first started reading the book, I thought that the notion of being an ogbanje as a metaphor for multiple personality disorder. Likewise, the notion of alternative selves in the book was a metaphor/guide to getting through difficult situations.
The traumatic assault that Ada experiences leads to the crystallization of her alternate selves: Asughara, who helps her be more assertive and navigate sex with her male partners and Saint Vincent, who I consider to be a representation of not understanding (and the lack of acceptance she experiences regarding) her queerness. Ada goes through a lot of other traumatic incidents with and caused by her alternative selves, but in the end, through an acceptance of being an ogbanje (and having peace with that, which she didn’t with therapy and counselling), she learns to live as herself.
It was a highly captivating read, especially as a debut novel. Furthermore, there are so many more elements to analyse in the book.
poetryandproze 