‘Astonishing.’ Stylist

‘Brilliant and heartbreaking.’ Marie Claire

‘Propulsive and resonant.’ Esquire

They burned down the market on the day Vivek Oji died.

One afternoon, a mother opens her front door to find the length of her son’s body stretched out on the veranda, swaddled in akwete material, his head on her welcome mat. The Death of Vivek Oji transports us to the day of Vivek’s birth, the day his grandmother Ahunna died. It is the story of an over protective mother and a distant father, and the heart-wrenching tale of one family’s struggle to understand their child, just as Vivek learns to recognize himself.

Teeming with unforgettable characters whose lives have been shaped by Vivek’s gentle and enigmatic spirit, it shares with us a Nigerian childhood that challenges expectations. This novel, and its celebration of the innocence and optimism of youth, will touch all those who embrace it.

AKMAEKE EMEZI

Akwaeke Emezi is an artist and writer based in liminal spaces.

Their most recent adult novel THE DEATH OF VIVEK OJI (Riverhead Books) was an Instant New York Times Bestseller, an Indie Bestseller, and an Indie Next selection. A 2018 National Book Foundation ’5 Under 35’ honoree, Emezi was born in Umuahia and raised in Aba, Nigeria.

Their debut YA novel PET (Make Me a World/RHCB) was a finalist for the 2019 National Book Award for Young People’s Literature and a Lambda Literary Award, as well as an Indie Next selection. Praised in The New York Times, it received a Stonewall Honor, a Walter Honor, and an Otherwise Award Honor after debuting with five starred reviews from Kirkus, Publishers Weekly, School Library Journal, Bookpage, and Bulletin.

Emezi’s debut autobiographical novel FRESHWATER (Grove Atlantic) is in early development as a TV series at FX, with Emezi writing and executive producing with Tamara P. Carter. Translated into twelve languages, FRESHWATER won the 2019 Otherwise Award (formerly the Tiptree) and the Nommo Award. It was a New York Times Notable Book as well as a finalist for the Center for Fiction’s First Novel Prize, the PEN/Hemingway Award, the NYPL Young Lions Fiction Award, the Edmund White Award for Debut Fiction, and a Lambda Literary Award. FRESHWATER was long-listed for the Carnegie Medal of Excellence, the Women’s Prize for Fiction, the Brooklyn Public Library Literary Prize, The Wellcome Prize, the Aspen Words Literary Prize, and named a 2018 Best Book of the Year by the New Yorker, NPR, the Chicago Public Library, and Buzzfeed.