“No wonder it’s soooo hard for people to get well”. It became personal to me.looking back at my own journey- my own struggles - my own fight - my own growth - my own inner peace. It’s absolutely the most brilliant creative book written of its kind. When I got the depths of this novel, here during these dark hours, I was blown away! My eyes were misty at the end. Narrated by the various selves within Ada and based in the author's realities, Freshwater dazzles with ferocious energy and serpentine grace, heralding the arrival of a fierce new literary voice. As Ada fades into the background of her own mind and these selves-now protective, now hedonistic-move into control, Ada's life spirals in a dark and dangerous direction.

A traumatic assault leads to a crystallization of her alternate selves: Asụghara and Saint Vincent. When Ada comes of age and moves to America for college, the group of selves within her grows in power and agency. Her parents, Saul and Saachi, successfully prayed her into existence, but as she grows into a volatile and splintered child, it becomes clear that something went terribly awry. It centers around a young Nigerian woman, Ada, who develops separate selves within her as a result of being born 'with one foot on the other side.' Unsettling, heartwrenching, dark, and powerful, Freshwater is a sharp evocation of a rare way of experiencing the world, one that illuminates how we all construct our identities.Īda begins her life in the south of Nigeria as a troubled baby and a source of deep concern to her family. An extraordinary debut novel, Freshwater explores the surreal experience of having a fractured self.

Freshwater by emezi