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… - Akwaeke Emezi

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.’”

…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…

…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.