# Akwaeke Emezi

Akwaeke Emezi is a Nigerian fiction writer and visual artist, best known for their novels Freshwater (2018) and Pet and the New York Times bestselling work The Death of Vivek Oji. Emezi is a generalist who writes speculative fiction, romance, memoir, and poetry for both young adults and adults with mostly LGBT themes. Their work has earned them several awards and nominations including the Otherwise Award and Commonwealth Short Story Prize. In 2021, Time featured them as a Next Generation Leader.

## Early life and education

Akwaeke Emezi was born in Umuahia, the capital city of Abia State, southeastern Nigeria in 1987 to an Igbo Nigerian father, and a mother who was the daughter of Sri Lankan Tamil immigrants living in Malaysia. Emezi grew up in Aba. Emezi started reading fantasy books and with their sister Yagazie used storytelling to escape the riots, dictatorship, and dangerous reality of their childhoods. Emezi was a "voracious" reader during childhood and they began writing short stories when they were five years old.
Emezi relocated to the Appalachian region of the United States when they were 16 years old to attend college. After college, they enrolled in a veterinary school and dropped out before receiving their MPA in international public policy and nonprofit management from New York University. Emezi briefly started a short-lived anonymous sex blog and a natural-hair blog which gave them little recognition. In 2014, they entered the MFA creative fiction writing program at Syracuse University where they started the draft of their debut novel Freshwater after which they attended Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's Farafina Trust Creative Writing Workshop in Lagos State, southwestern Nigeria.

## Career

Emezi's debut novel Freshwater tells the semi-autobiographical story of the protagonist, Ada, who is an ogbanje (an Igbo evil spirit). Emezi explores their Igbo heritage's spirituality and gender alongside those of Western construction and invites their audience to think critically about this spirit/body binary.
Freshwater received significant critical acclaim and was longlisted for numerous prestigious awards. Emezi was also recognized as a 2018 National Book Foundation "5 Under 35" honoree.
In 2019, Freshwater was nominated for the Women's Prize for Fiction—the first time a non-binary transgender author has been nominated for the prize. Women's prize judge Professor Kate Williams said that the panel did not know Emezi was non-binary when the book was chosen, but she said Emezi was happy to be nominated. Non-binary commentator Vic Parsons wrote that the nomination raised uncomfortable questions, asking: "would a non-binary author who was assigned male at birth have been longlisted? I highly doubt it." After the nomination, it was announced that the Women's Prize Trust was working on new guidelines for transgender, non-binary, and genderfluid authors. The Women's Prize later asked for Emezi's "sex as defined by law" when submitting The Death of Vivek Oji for inclusion, and Emezi chose to withdraw, calling the requirement transphobic and specifically exclusionary to trans women.
Emezi's second novel and first young adult novel Pet, released on 10 September 2019, is about a transgender teenager named Jam living in a world where adults refuse to acknowledge the existence of monsters. Bitter, the prequel to Pet, was released in February 2022.
Emezi signed a two-book deal with Riverhead Books. The first, The Death of Vivek Oji, came out on 4 August 2020 and was a New York Times best seller. The second is a memoir entitled Dear Senthuran: A Black Spirit Memoir.
Emezi's debut poetry collection Content Warning: Everything was published in April 2022.
In April 2021, Deadline Hollywood announced that Amazon Studios won the right to adapt their debut romance novel You Made a Fool of Death with Your Beauty into a feature film. It was purchased in a high six-figure deal which Deadline called the biggest book deal of the year so far. Michael B. Jordan’s Outlier Society will develop it alongside Elizabeth Raposo. Emezi will serve as the executive producer.

### Other works

Emezi has written and directed short films, including Hey Celestial and Ududeagu. Ududeagu won the Experimental Short Audience Award at the 2014 edition of the BlackStar Film Festival.
In 2019, it was announced that Emezi will write and executive produce the TV series adaptation of their novel Freshwater for FX alongside Tamara P. Carter, to be produced by FX Productions with Kevin Wandell and Lindsey Donahue.
In 2023, Emezi ventured into rap music, releasing their first single "Banye". In March 2024, Emezi released their debut EP Stop Dying, You Were Very Expensive.

## Personal life

Emezi identifies as non-binary transgender. They use they/them pronouns. They experience multiplicity and consider themself an ogbanje. They experienced their first personality split when they were 16, a week after moving to the United States. They have written about their experience of undergoing gender confirmation surgery.

## Awards and nominations

| Year | Title | Award | Category | Result |
| 2017 | — | Astraea Lesbian Foundation for Justice | Global Arts Fund Grant | Won |
| 2017 | "Who Is Like God" | Commonwealth Short Story Prize | Africa | Won |
| 2018 | Freshwater | The Brooklyn Public Library | Literary Prize | Nominated |
| 2018 | Freshwater | Center for Fiction First Novel Prize | — | Shortlisted |
| 2019 | Freshwater | Andrew Carnegie Medals for Excellence | Fiction | Longlisted |
| 2019 | Freshwater | Aspen Words Literary Prize | — | Longlisted |
| 2019 | Freshwater | Nommo Award | Novel | Won |
| 2019 | Freshwater | Otherwise Award | — | Won |
| 2019 | Freshwater | PEN/Hemingway Award | — | Finalist |
| 2019 | Freshwater | Women's Prize for Fiction | — | Longlisted |
| 2019 | Freshwater | Young Lions Fiction Award | — | Finalist |
| 2019 | Pet | National Book Award | Young People's Literature | Finalist |
| 2020 | Pet | Walter Dean Myers Award | Teen | Won |
| 2020 | The Death of Vivek Oji | Goodreads Choice Awards | Fiction | Nominated–13th |
| 2020 | The Death of Vivek Oji | Los Angeles Times Book Prize | Fiction | Shortlisted |
| 2021 | The Death of Vivek Oji | Aspen Words Literary Prize | — | Longlisted |
| 2021 | The Death of Vivek Oji | Audie Award | Literary Fiction & Classics | Won |
| 2021 | The Death of Vivek Oji | Dylan Thomas Prize | — | Shortlisted |
| 2021 | The Death of Vivek Oji | Nommo Award | Novel | Won |
| 2021 | The Death of Vivek Oji | Orwell Prize | Political Fiction | Shortlisted |
| 2021 | The Death of Vivek Oji | PEN/Jean Stein Book Award | — | Shortlisted |
| 2022 | The Death of Vivek Oji | International Dublin Literary Award | — | Shortlisted |
| 2022 | Dear Senthuran: A Black Spirit Memoir | Lambda Literary Awards | Nonfiction | Shortlisted |
| 2022 | Dear Senthuran: A Black Spirit Memoir | Stonewall Award | Israel Fishman Nonfiction Award | Won |
| 2022 | You Made a Fool of Death with Your Beauty | Goodreads Choice Awards | Romance | Nominated–12th |
| 2023 | You Made a Fool of Death with Your Beauty | Audie Awards | Romance | Shortlisted |
| 2023 | You Made a Fool of Death with Your Beauty | NAACP Image Awards | Fiction | Shortlisted |
| 2023 | Bitter | ALA Rainbow Book List | — | Selected |
| 2023 | Bitter | Locus Award | Young Adult | Shortlisted |