London Review Book Box - September 2020

Akwaeke Emezi’s debut novel is as haunting and strange as anything else from the last ten years, a narrative of multiple personality disorder refracted through Igbo cosmology, bringing together elements from fairytale, campus novel, coming-of-age story and autobiography. (Emezi has described it as ‘a breath away from being a memoir’.) The narrator, Ada, is a human girl inhabited by Igbo tricker-spirits called ogbanje, each with their own personalities, agendas and narrative voices; at university in the USA, a traumatic event gives these separate selves a fresh impetus of control, pushing her life down a dangerous pathway. Emezi’s dedication at the start of the book is a fine summary of Freshwater’s central theme: the book is dedicated ‘to those of us / with one foot / on the other side’.