For the highly prolific Akwaeke Emezi, literary success is a spiritual calling.
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The day I meet Akwaeke Emezi,we are on the other side of a storm.
The night before, a tornado ripped through New Orleans, razing power poles and flipping SUVs.
A few miles north, in Emezis garden, the mid-afternoon sun is bright, forgetful.
The culantro has been lost to the wind, but the carrots are ready to be unearthed.
I pull one up, and it is thick and purple, like a vein.
Its a slightly ridiculous space, Emezi says, looking around.
Emezi published their debut novel,Freshwater,in 2018 to raves.
Their second adult novel,The Death of Vivek Oji,became an instant best seller.
Now 34, Emezi describes their storytelling as a service and being visible as a spiritual calling.
I do well in the spotlight, they tell me.
It is literally what I am supposed to do.
The writer has a flair for opulence and for maximalist self-fashioning.
How much tea do I want to spill?
they ask when we sit down to lunch.
As a conversationalist, theyre expert at inspiring intrigue.
Sentences often begin with And then.
Over and over, I find myself responding with increasing desperation: And then what?
(The goal, Emezi tells me, is to get as big and bright as possible.)
Im supposed to die, but Im not allowed to commit suicide, they tell me.
I exist in a metaphysical overlap.
But Emezi tells me that they dont identify as shit.
I am the thing.
Its not an opinion.
So I did, Emezi tells me.
And then I never came back out.
Emezi was bornin Umuahia, Nigeria, in 1987.
He was a doctor who had been raised to chase prestige.
Do you have money?
Do you have power?
Do you have a chieftaincy title?
Back in the day, it would be like: How many barns of yam do you have?
Given his lifestyle in London, Emezis mother thought they would be moving toward something comfortable.
Nigeria was then under the rule of the countrys armed forces, and riots frequently followed elections.
Emezi slipped easily into fantasy.
Fairies populated their backyard, and animals spoke to them at length.
In their journal, they narrated their life from a series of alternate perspectives.
Then, in their junior year, they experienced a split again.
Emezi tells me this persona was a complete asshole.
They got married, got divorced, started therapy.
A year later, they attempted to overdose and wound up in the ER.
Emezi had known about the concept of ogbanje since they were a child.
But it wasnt until they began writing an account of their own life that they felt that theywereone.
They repurposed over $10,000 from their student loans to pay for top surgery.
Later, they had a hysterectomy.
They also came to understand that they might actually be the child of Ala, their namesake.
I call myself a God, because my mother is one, Emezi tells me.
I dont really have any other reason.
Ogbanje are not commonly understood to live past puberty.
Nor are they thought to name themselves; the designation is usually ascribed by a community.
So many of our Indigenous beliefs were time-stamped by colonialism.
Were so defined by that gaze.
But were not back in the day now.
I dont have to live in hiding.
What does it look like if I mark myself?
In the fall of 2014,Emezi entered the M.F.A.
creative-writing program at Syracuse.
When she selected one of Emezis stories, they were thrilled, though their relationship with Adichie wasnt close.
My feeling is that trans women are trans women, said Adichie.
Emezi says they personally have not spoken to Adichie directly since 2015.
Ive had people be like, Do you want to be in conversation with Chimamanda?
And Im like, No more than I would want to be in a conversation with a white supremacist.
In a world that incentivizes lying, Emezi tells me, they have been honest to a fault.
Baby writers dont know about the politics of public relations or the possibility of retaliation.
They always knew they were going to be famous.
They used to think about money in terms of rent.
Now, they think in terms of six figures.
Eventually, they would like to think in terms of seven.
I want to show it off because why not?
they write inDear Senthuran.If we live in rooms full of mirrors, how glorious can we get?
These critiques contain something of a sleight of hand.
All my work is the same work.
Its all spiritual self-portraiture.
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