How did you learn about the ọgbanje ? Was this through your own personal interest/discovery, or have you had any knowledge given to you by family or friends? It was also a process of discovery – I had no outline for Freshwater, no idea how it was going to take shape, but it built itself as I was writing it. The novel is autobiographical, so I used my life as a chronological skeleton for the story, which meant revisiting a lot of things that were immensely painful. Honestly? I had several emotional breakdowns while writing it. How would you describe your experience and process writing Freshwater? It comes from an Igbo proverb, ‘All freshwater comes out of the mouth of a python.’ It’s another way of saying that all life comes from the deity Ala, whose avatar is the python. Read an extract from Akwaeke Emezi’s Freshwater. From her youth in Aba, Nigeria, to her adult life in America, Ada merges with spirit selves within her after she faces a terrible assault.Īkwaeke Emezi spoke about their writing process, inspiration and who they had in mind when writing. We talked with Akwaeke Emezi about their debut novel, Freshwater, a story of spirit selves known as ọgbanje, birthed into a child’s body.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |