Their language is so fluid and remarkable, like the best of poetry, and is endlessly inviting. ‘ Osita wished, much later, that he'd told Vivek the truth then, that he was so beautiful he made the air around him dull.’Īkwaeke Emezi has an undeniable gift for prose and storytelling. With most of the story taking place in 1998 surrounding the death of dictator Sani Abacha Emezi entwines Nigerian social issues with their characters awakenings of identity in a novel so moving, so exquisitely crafted it deserves to become a modern Classic. Central to these lives is Vivek, whose death casts a long shadow over the novel as Emezi deftly weaves past and a post-death present to expertly tease tension and narrative reveals to absolute perfection. The follow up to their incredibly imaginative and important 2018 novel Freshwater-which set such a high bar I didn’t think possible to clear-and the wonderful 2019 YA novel Pet, Emezi returns with a bittersweet and powerfully moving story set in their home of Nigeria and follows the lives of characters who, for a variety of reasons, don’t quite fit in.
Have you ever wondered what it felt like finishing a novel before it was dubbed a “Classic?” Upon turning the final page in Akwaeke Emezi’s The Death of Vivek Oji I had the feeling I was finishing something that deserves to be important for a long time and could likely be a modern Classic. ‘ It was the clearest terror and pleasure I had ever known.’
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