#AkwaekeEmezi :

I’m also interested in how writing spiritfirst in an industry that doesn’t really reckon with spirit places my work, but I know eye will always place it where it belongs, centered in spirit. My job is to hold that center, and as Morrison said, wait for the world to move over.

#BlackLiterature #AfricanLiterature #Igbo #ogbanje

#AkwaekeEmezi :

But I *am* going to chime in, especially when I see people framing their subjective experiences of the work as something objective. I want us to question how our own centers affect our engagement with the work, and what power dynamics might lie in that.

#AkwaekeEmezi :

It’s frustrating because a lot of people read FW, then read my essay in the Cut, and decided that the center of the book must be nonbinary identity. Which to me, is just another flavor of when people tried to shift the center over to mental illness.

These things can be present in the book without being the center. The center is spirit. The center is not human.

#AkwaekeEmezi :

A note on Freshwater—it is *not* a book about nonbinary/trans identity through an Igbo lens, ffs. It is not about gender whatsoever and framing it as that is trying to force it over to a human/Western center. It is about embodiment as an ogbanje.

https://twitter.com/azemezi/status/1404113385915027457

The #book I'm reading right now is called "Pet" by #AkwaekeEmezi. It's #lgbt-caring and #abolitionist and #Black focused. It's full of beautiful metaphorical language, and it portrays a hopeful and healing vision of what society could become.

But it's also about #monsters. The real kind that look like regular people. And it's a manual on how to see clues you've ignored, and keep each other safe.
https://share.libbyapp.com/title/4617793