Freshwater

Akwaeke Emezi Faber €24

Ada is born in Nigeria with a chorus of spirits in tow. The interventions of these unruly beings make for a choppy infancy, but their potency gains new heights when Ada is raped as a teenager after moving to America. In her scorching debut, Emezi turns to Igbo spirituality to make sense of multiple identities – Ada lies somewhere in between the male/female binary, and she is both a chaste Christian and a voracious lover. With themes of suicide, self-harm and assault, it is ultimately an exhilarating fable about the healing power of self-knowledge.