Home Books Dear Senthuran: A Black Spirit Memoir

Dear Senthuran: A Black Spirit Memoir

Dear Senthuran: A Black Spirit Memoir

by Akwaeke Emezi

Riverhead Books ·2021 ·240 pages ·Memoir
Top of the Pile
Top of the Pile
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76/99
Near the Top

72/99

Critics

Top of the Pile

80/99

Readers

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Scholars

51/99

Rating

92/99

Volume

83/99

Rating

77/99

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About This Book

A full-throated and provocative memoir in letters from the New York Times-bestselling author, "a dazzling literary talent whose works cut to the quick of the spiritual self." --Esquire In three critically acclaimed novels, Akwaeke Emezi has introduced readers to a landscape marked by familial tensions, Igbo belief systems, and a boundless search for what it means to be free. Now, in this extraordinary memoir, the bestselling author of The Death of Vivek Oji reveals the harrowing yet resolute truths of their own life. Through candid, intimate correspondence with friends, lovers, and family, Emezi traces the unfolding of a self and the unforgettable journey of a creative spirit stepping into power in the human world. Their story weaves through transformative decisions about their gender and body, their precipitous path to success as a writer, and the turmoil of relationships on an emotional, romantic, and spiritual plane, culminating in a book that is as tender as it is brutal. Electrifying and inspiring, animated by the same voracious intelligence that distinguishes their fiction, Dear Senthuran is a revelatory account of storytelling, self, and survival.


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Reviews

"Emezi generously shares both their wounds and their wisdom, offering aspiring writers and artists fresh inspiration for creating new forms of making, loving and being."

Catherine Hollis· BookPage Read review ↗ Top of the Pile

"What is revealed in these letters is both the immense strength Emezi has nurtured in order to sustain a belief in who they are despite the destructive noise of the world, as well as Emezi's own brave and poignant vulnerability in charting this journey ..."

HOPE WABUKE· NPR Read review ↗ Top of the Pile

"Upon reading it, I am inclined to say that it even has its own orbit."

Kayla Provencher· Bookreporter Read review ↗ Top of the Pile

"Those interested in broadening their metaphysical understanding of the world would do well to pick up this spellbinding work."

Publishers Weekly Read review ↗ Top of the Pile

"For some readers, getting past Emezi's 'outrageously arrogant' demand 'for attention, for glory, for worship' as a self-described 'bratty deity' may require a leap of faith and a modicum of empathy, a merely human trait."

Kirkus Read review ↗ Near the Top

"A powerful memoir such as this benefits greatly from this epistolary structure."

Keishel Williams· The Washington Post Read review ↗ Near the Top

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