Akwaeke Emezi

Akwaeke Emezi is an Igbo and Tamil writer and video artist based in liminal spaces. They are a 2018 National Book Foundation ‘5 Under 35’ honoree and their debut autobiographical novel FRESHWATER is currently a finalist for the PEN/Hemingway Award and long-listed for the Aspen Words Literary Prize. Translated into six languages, FRESHWATER was a New York Times Notable Book of 2018 and a finalist for the Center for Fiction’s First Novel Prize. It was long-listed for the Carnegie Medal of Excellence and The Brooklyn Public Library Literary Prize, and named a Best Book of the Year by the New Yorker, NPR, the Chicago Public Library, and Buzzfeed. FRESHWATER debuted as an Indies Introduce Title, receiving rave reviews from the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the New Yorker, the Guardian, and the LA Times, among others.