Freshwater

Freshwater is a novel written by Akwaeke Emezi and published in February 2018. The novel falls under the genre of literary fiction with some crossover into magical realism, but Emezi has stated that it is also nearly entirely autobiographical. The novel was nominated for several awards, including the Women’s Prize for Fiction. Emezi was the first nonbinary transgender person to be nominated for this prize. Emezi themself has experienced much of what the main character, Ada, goes through in the novel, including struggling with self-harm, eating disorders, gender dysphoria, and suicide attempts. Emezi also identifies as ogbanje, believed by Igbo people to be a spirit that manifests into a human’s body at birth. The Igbo are an ethnic group in Nigeria where Emezi (and Ada) grew up. This novel explores ideas surrounding Multiplicity: Refusal of the Binary, Spiritual Connection Versus Western Medicine, and The Lifelong Impact of Trauma.

This guide refers to the 2018 edition published by Grove Press.

Content Warning: This novel discusses sexual assault, self-harm, suicide, eating disorders, and domestic abuse. The guide also quotes stigmatizing language about mental illness.

Plot Summary

Mostly written from the perspective of the ogbanje, this novel focuses on Ada from before her birth to well into her adult life. Beginning in her early childhood, Ada tries to move toward love through Yshwa (Christ), but she is born inhabited by other beings with other interests. Her mother, Saachi, does her best in the face of the gods that inhabit her child, but, as a human, she can only do so much. Ultimately, Saachi leaves her children for a job in Saudi Arabia. The ogbanje have always been within Ada, but they appear in earnest for the first time when Ada goes to a celebration with her friend wherein everyone dances and calls to spirits. Ada is happy during this ceremony, but the ogbanje generally see the human world as stupid and inconsequential, so they find it easy to disregard what Ada finds important. Furthermore, the ogbanje come from a family of brothersister figures who constantly beg them to come home, a request that would mean death for Ada. Part 1 of the novel is written from the perspective of multiple ogbanjes in first-person plural. They are simultaneously writing as one and as multiple. Ada writes in a journal, naming them Smoke and Shadow, empowering the ogbanje.

When Ada is repeatedly sexually assaulted as a young college student, another being named Asughara is born. She is the most cruel, unforgiving, and controlling of Ada’s body, born from pain so deep that she was forced to experience it in Ada’s place. Asughara wants to drink, have sex, hurt herself, and break people using Ada’s body and succeeds in her goals at many points throughout the novel. When Ada first experiences this trauma, she is so lost that she needs Asughara to speak through her and make decisions for her in order to get through the day. Asughara takes responsibility for Ada’s protection and decides the best way to do this is to act cruelly toward others.

Later in college, Ada meets Ewan, an Irish man who has a girlfriend back home. Despite this barrier, Ada and Ewan begin an on-and-off relationship that spans years. Eventually, after heartbreak inflicted by Ewan and retaliation from Asughara, Ewan breaks up with his girlfriend, gets sober, and gives himself to Ada. Watching Ada’s genuine happiness, Asughara takes a step back. For the first time, Ada experiences being present during sex without Asughara, but she does not want to do it again. Ewan and Ada get married and move in together, but their relationship deteriorates because Ada cannot be the wife that he wants. He wants her to give herself entirely to him, but she has so much locked inside of her that she cannot. At this heartbreak, Asughara comes to the forefront once again to protect Ada. Asughara hardens further because she was proved correct: Love only ends in heartbreak.

In her adult life, Ada becomes closer with Asughara. They talk like friends in the marble room of Ada’s mind. Another ogbanje, Saint Vincent, slowly emerges. He is gentle, loving, and playful. He does not violently control Ada, but he explores gender expression in her dreams. As he comes to the front of her mind, Ada begins dating women and wearing a binder to flatten her chest. The ogbanje explain that the changes to her body are a result of them trying to create a vessel that better reflects all that is inside of her. Around this time, Asughara convinces Ada to attempt suicide. She takes half a bottle of pills, but then her lover calls and she is sent to the hospital. Having seen what they can do with her body, the ogbanje decide to get a breast reduction to move toward the vessel that they one day want her to be. Ada tries repeatedly to research mental illnesses, go to therapy, and get rid of these beings but fails. The ogbanje know that Ada needs to make sense of it as a person raised by parents in medicine, but they disapprove of this pursuit of information. Throughout all of this, Yshwa comes to visit Ada in the marble room of her mind. He delivers his teachings consistently—just love. It becomes clear that Asughara felt pain in the same way that Ada did, but because it was too painful, she threw it back out into the world rather than internalizing it. Yshwa sees this in her and offers Ada unconditional love.

The ogbanje explain that Ada is different because she is a child of both Ala—the mother, judge, ultimate arbiter—as well as ogbanje. She has been pulled throughout her life in two directions: Ala has directed her to live, and the ogbanje want her to die. Ada has met others throughout her life with gods within them, like Marena in college who protected her and gave her messages from the other side. Later, she meets a priest in Nigeria named Leshi who transforms her. He immediately recognizes her for who she is—a human inhabited by gods. They spend two nights together in a hotel room, and he completely unravels her, asking her questions, seeing her truth, empathizing, pushing her for more truth, and telling her unequivocally to let go of her fear. The result is that Ada is once again pushed to the front of her own mind, more accepting and more understanding than she has been in the past.

The novel ends with a chapter from Ada’s perspective. She recognizes that she has been fighting herself throughout her entire life. The priest helped her to give up the battle, fall into the loving arms of her mother, and recognize the truth: that she is a god dressed as a human. Accepting this was not easy, and the panic and fear took over her body and begged her to stop breathing, but she did not go to the other side. Eventually, she prayed directly to Ala, and her mother appeared to her, asking her to find her tail. Ala is a python, and, as her daughter, so is Ada. The python’s body represents the circular nature of all things—the beginning is the end, the death is the birth, and the shedding is the resurrection. Ada begins to accept that she did not come from humans and will not leave any behind. She accepts that it is not that gods live within her but that she is a god. For the entire novel, their perspectives are separated, many times at odds with one another, but ultimately they are all one. She is not afraid because her mother is there and she is the python, the source of the freshwater.