Akwaeke Emezi Quotes

(Part 1, Chapter 4, Page 45)

I think multiple realities exist. Most colonised countries had their cosmology, their ontology, their metaphysics colonised too. They’ve been told that what was there before wasn’t real. My dad’s a pretty conservative Christian, but he’ll still get a pastor to come to the hospital [where he works as a doctor] because someone’s been working black magic. I say to him: “If you don’t believe in it, why is the pastor there?” He says: “You don’t need to believe in something for it to be real.”

We bled a lot and Saul gave us the injection himself, but the Ada has no scar so perhaps this is a memory.”

Bitter knew her name was heavy, but she hadn’t minded, because it was honest. That was something she’d taught Jam—that a lot of things were manageable as long as they were honest […] But Jam trusted her mother for those brutal truths, and that’s why home was the first place she brought the books with the angels in them.”

I think we're just figuring out how to survive a world on fire…that it's okay to be alive.

Feyi had already decided who she wanted to be that night, so she stared right back at him, unabashed, drinking in his terra-cotta skin and dark copper beard.”

…I read literally everything I could get my hands on – the shampoo bottle, the cereal box. My mom didn’t let us have books at the table or we’d all have read. We didn’t always have electricity, so I read by candlelight. I read really fast too. My parents realised I’d run out of things to read and were like: “We need to buy you way more books.”

This was before Vivek, before the fire, before Chika would discover exactly how difficult it was to dig his own grave with the bones of his son.”

There shouldn’t be any monsters left in Lucille. The city used to have them, of course—what city didn’t? They used to be everywhere, thick in the air and offices, in the streets and in people’s own homes. They used to be the police and teachers and judges and even the mayor; yeah, the mayor used to be a monster.”

The main problem was that we were a distinct we instead of being fully and just her.”

…Whenever you write something biographical, everyone in your family doesn’t share the same memory. So your version of the story is not necessarily their version of the story, and part of the flexibility in having it fictionalized is that there’s not really a need to adhere to the strict facts. Because everything is colored by memory, especially when you’re pulling from childhood memories. There’s a little bit of wiggle room. This is my story of these events, as I remember it, as I experienced it…

Her mother focused on her, cupping her cheek in a chalky hand. ‘Monsters don’t look like anything, doux-doux. That’s the whole point. That’s the whole problem.’”

As Jam watched, its fur softened and it shifted its stance just a little, draining the menace away. Well, little girl, it replied, I supposed you can call me Pet.”

…The novel is autobiographical, so I used my life as a chronological skeleton for the story, which meant revisiting a lot of things that were immensely painful. It was also a process of discovery – I had no outline for Freshwater, no idea how it was going to take shape, but it built itself as I was writing it.

Feyi felt like a monster and a traitor, but it was fine, it had to happen.”