It’s hard to explain but I guess I was just hoping this book would be more in terms of helping us understand African spirituality. It is also important for stories like this to be heard in the African community, as we don’t address issues like multiple personality enough. Since this book is supposed to be an autobiographical style I respect the author putting her truth out there. I also don’t understand what makes the reader more of a God than anyone else. I am still not much more enlightened as to what an Obanje is than before reading this book.
Maybe I should have gone in with no expectations but I had read so much press promising what this book was going to bring that, that was hard. After much anticipation for this book I found myself not being able to identify with the writers character/characters at all. So I decided to listen to the audio in the hopes that the authors voice would bring more life to the written words. I originally bought the hard copy but was struggling to get past the first couple of chapters as the style of writing did not grab my attention at all. As Ada fades into the background of her own mind and these selves - now protective, now hedonistic - move into control, Ada's life spirals in a dark and dangerous direction.
When Ada comes of age and moves to America for college, the group of selves within her grows in power and agency.Ī traumatic assault leads to a crystallization of her alternate selves: Asụghara and Saint Vincent. Her parents, Saul and Saachi, successfully prayed her into existence, but as she grows into a volatile and splintered child, it becomes clear that something went terribly awry. Unsettling, heart-wrenching, dark, and powerful, Freshwater is a sharp evocation of a rare way of experiencing the world, one that illuminates how we all construct our identities.Īda begins her life in the south of Nigeria as a troubled baby and a source of deep concern to her family. It centers around a young Nigerian woman, Ada, who develops separate selves within her as a result of being born "with one foot on the other side".
An extraordinary debut novel, Freshwater explores the surreal experience of having a fractured self.
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