Freshwater

The author, Akwaeke Emezi, has said that this story is very close to an autobiography. Akwaeke shares many characteristics with the main character, Ada, including their nationality, experience with multiplicity, gender dysphoria, and ọgbanje. Emezi is a nonbinary writer who has undergone gender-affirming surgery like Ada. This is their first novel. They said that after writing, they experienced much more clarity about their place in this world. They were the first openly trans person nominated for the Women’s Prize for Fiction. When nominated again later in their career, they were asked to provide their “sex as defined by law,” and they withdrew their novel (Flood, Alison. “Akwaeke Emezi Shuns Women’s Prize Over Request for Details of Sex as Defined ‘by Law.’” The Guardian, 5 Oct. 2020).

Through this kind of novel—semi-autobiographical but also rooted in imagination—Emezi explores their lifelong experiences outside of the judgment of systems like Western science and the gender binary. To write this book, they interviewed their mother and sister, traveled to Nigeria, and extensively researched ogbanje. Their trans and ogbanje identities are inextricable in that both do not fit into the Western view of science. Each identity exists on a spectrum that is not a binary.