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Akwaeke Emezi talks about their love of romance novels, exploring stories of grief, and writing seven books in four years, including Dear Senthuran: A Black Spirit Memoir (Riverhead Books, 2021) and You Made a Fool of Death With Your Beauty (Atria Books, 2022), in this interview for The Daily Show With Trevor Noah. For more from Emezi, read their installment of our Ten Questions series.
“I can make worlds. That’s literally my job, is to make worlds,” says Awkaeke Emezi in this American Writers Museum video. “Instead of searching for other people to give me a place to belong, I just bent one into existence myself.” Emezi’s latest novel, The Death of Vivek Oji (Riverhead Books, 2020), is featured in Page One in the September/October issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.
“She wasn’t sure if we were real, but nothing about us felt false.” Akwaeke Emezi, a 2018 National Book Foundation 5 Under 35 honoree nominated by Carmen Maria Machado, reads from their debut novel, Freshwater (Grove Press, 2018). The novel has been longlisted for the 2019 Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction.
