Akwaeke Emezi

Akwaeke Emezi (they/them) is a multidisciplinary artist and writer whose work—rooted in Black spirit, embodiment, legacy, and memory—spans multiple genres, experiences, and geographies. Since electrifying the literary world with their debut novel Freshwater in 2018, Akwaeke has garnered overwhelming critical acclaim and instant New York Times bestseller status with a rapidly growing body of work that includes two adult literary novels, two YA novels, a memoir, a romance, two poetry collections and counting.

Selected as a “5 Under 35” honoree by the National Book Foundation, featured in a TIME Magazine cover story as a Next Generation Leader, and photographed by Annie Liebovitz for a Vogue profile, Akwaeke has also been named one of “The New Hollywood Guard: Writers” by Vanity Fair. Their memoir Dear Senthuran was awarded the 2022 Stonewall Book Award for Nonfiction. Their romance debut, You Made a Fool of Death with Your Beauty, was published in 2022, with the screen rights selling to Amazon Studios in a seven-figure deal, for which Akwaeke will serve as executive producer.

Akwaeke is also the author of the New York Times bestseller The Death of Vivek Oji, which was a finalist for the Dylan Thomas Prize, the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, the PEN/Jean Stein Award and the Dublin Literary Award; Pet, a finalist for the National Book Award for Young People’s Literature, a Walter Honor Book and a Stonewall Honor Book; Content Warning: Everything, their debut poetry collection, and Bitter, their second young adult novel. Their debut autobiographical novel Freshwater was named a New York Times Notable Book, shortlisted for the PEN/Hemingway Award, the New York Public Library Young Lions Fiction Award, the Lambda Literary Award, the Center for Fiction’s First Novel Prize, and is in early development as a TV series at FX, with Akwaeke writing and executive producing with Tamara P. Carter.

Akwaeke was awarded a Global Arts Fund grant in 2017 for their video art, which premiered in 2018 at Gavin Brown’s enterprise in Harlem. They also received a 2017 Sozopol Fellowship for Creative Nonfiction and their short story “Who Is Like God” won the 2017 Commonwealth Short Story Prize for Africa. Their writing has been published by T Magazine, Dazed Magazine, The Cut, Buzzfeed, Granta Online, Vogue.com, and Commonwealth Writers, among others. Their most recent book, Little Rot, was released in 2024. The New York Times says of Little Rot: “a masterwork…mesmerizing…We come away troubled, unsettled — and in some subtle way changed.”