Freshwater by Akwaeke Emezi

Think of Freshwater book as Eddie and Venom: the parasitical aspect, with its supreme interactions with the ordinary.

Think of Freshwater by Akwaeke Emezi as Eddie and Venom: the parasitical aspect with its supreme interactions with the ordinary, the synchrony of this consummation, the awareness that this synchrony exists, the futility of defiance, the continuity of havocs, their endeavors, and their pleasureliness, the underworld and its politics, the human mind as the marble room, the weaker vessel, the deconstructed selves, the outermost damages.

If, like me, you read Emezi’s Freshwater with a socio-religious psyche, i.e., a Gadarene-Legion lens, you may be torn. Torn in a way that obscures your understanding: Are the points of view necessary for the motility of the identities the Ada embodied, or did the author feel compelled to convey a famous apogee for madness relative to her contextual struggles?

Themes

Ogbanje is the Igbo way of saying Abiku, or, more commonly known, a reincarnated child. Emezi brilliantly voices what can be said to be these inhabitants’ explanations to an unbiased audience.

It is essentially believed that persons who are hosts are “received” from an extraordinary benefactor (a deity specializing in fertility) following their parents’ inability to make one biologically, or are merely unfortunate vessels that their mothers happened upon a stray demon.

Mainly, the former is termed Compassion. It is the ingenuity of this piteous estate accorded to stranded worshippers that foregrounds the loop of death and rebirth. That is, these gods answering prayers of their believers never really gave a true gift. It is a gift that returns to the giver, whether the receiver appreciates its absence. This is what happens to Saul and Saachi. Gifts were not gifts. Ada was not Ada. Ada was We, Asughara, Saint Vincent, The Python’s Egg, e.t.c.

Overall, Freshwater by Akwaeke Emezi is a literary bridge from the subconscious to the otherworldly in a culturally consistent form.