Born on the day of his grandmother, Ahunna's, death, Vivek becomes solidified to her by the starfish-shaped scar on Vivek's foot that resembles Ahunna’s, Vivek’s grandmother. The novel begins with the death of Vivek Oji and is told through a series of flashback in a nonlinear narrative. The novel is set in southeastern Nigeria during the 1980s and ’90s. It is Emezi's second adult novel after Freshwater and the book received critical attention and was an instant New York Times best seller. It was published on 4 August 2020 by Riverhead books, it narrates the life of Vivek Oji until his death.

Freshwater, which was longlisted for the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in fiction by the American Library Association, is their debut novel.The Death of Vivek Oji is a 2020 fiction novel by Nigerian author Akwaeke Emezi. They won the 2017 Commonwealth Short Story Prize for Africa, and their writing has been published by Dazed Magazine, The Cut, Buzzfeed, Granta Online,, and Commonwealth Writers, among others. In 2017, Emezi was awarded a Global Arts Fund grant and a Sozopol Fellowship for Creative Nonfiction. Born in Umuahia and raised in Aba, Nigeria, Emezi holds two degrees, including an MPA from New York University. They are a recipient of the National Book Foundation's '5 Under 35' award for 2018, selected by Carmen Maria Machado.

This novel, and its celebration of the innocence and optimism of youth will touch all those who embrace it.Īkwaeke Emezi is an Igbo and Tamil writer and video artist based in liminal spaces. Teeming with unforgettable characters whose lives have been shaped by Vivek’s gentle and enigmatic spirit, it shares with us a Nigerian childhood that challenges expectations. It is the story of an over protective mother and a distant father, and the heart-wrenching tale of one family’s struggle to understand their child, just as Vivek learns to recognize himself. The Death of Vivek Oji transports us to the day of Vivek’s birth, the day his grandmother Ahunna died.

One afternoon, a mother opens her front door to find the length of her son’s body stretched out on the veranda, swaddled in akwete material, his head on her welcome mat. They burned down the market on the day Vivek Oji died. 'Brilliant and heartbreaking.' Marie Claire

The death of vivek oji a novel