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Aftershocks: A Memoir by Nadia Owusu- Hardback

Aftershocks: A Memoir by Nadia Owusu- Hardback
Aftershocks: A Memoir by Nadia Owusu- Hardback
N9,850
Ex Tax: N9,850
  • Stock: In Stock
  • Model: Memoir
  • Weight: 1.00kg
  • ISBN: 9781982111229
"Nadia Owusu grew up all over the world--from Rome and London to Dar-es-Salaam and Kampala. When her mother abandoned her when she was two years old, the rejection caused Nadia to be confused about her identity. Even after her father died when she was thirteen and she was raised by her stepmother, she was unable to come to terms with who she was since she still felt motherless and alone. When Nadia went to university in America when she was eighteen she still felt as if she had so many competing personas that she couldn't keep track of them all without cracking under the pressure of trying to hold herself together. A powerful coming-of-age story that explores timely and universal themes of identity, Aftershocks follows Nadia's life as she hauls herself out of the wreckage and begins to understand that the only ground firm enough to count on is the one she writes into existence"--

In a literary landscape rich with diaspora memoirs, Owusu's painful yet radiant story rises to the forefront. The daughter of an Armenian-American mother who abandoned her and a heroic Ghanaian father who died when she was thirteen, Nadia drifted across continents in a trek that she renders here with poetic, indelible prose." --O MAGAZINE

"[Owusu] dispatches all of this heartache with blistering honesty, but does so with prose light enough that it never feels too much to bear." --ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY

"[A] gorgeous and unsettling memoir." --THE NEW YORK TIMES (EDITOR'S CHOICE)

"Owusu's life has been a series of upheavals: She has lived across the world, thanks to her Ghanaian father's work with the United Nations, and was all but abandoned by her Armenian-American mother. Eventually, settling in New York as an adult gives the author a chance to make sense of her identity. Images of earthquakes and their aftermaths recur throughout the narrative: As Owusu notes, aftershocks are the 'earth's delayed reaction to stress.'" --THE NEW YORK TIMES

"Owusu devotes a portion of this memoir to surveying the ruptured histories of the many countries she's connected to, but it's her striking personal story and charged language that makes Aftershocks compelling. [L]yrical...[A] well-wrought, often powerful memoir." --MAUREEN CORRIGAN, FRESH AIR

"Nadia Owusu's first full-length book, Aftershocks, is about all of these parts of what is her single, complex life. In her capable writing, stories become nearly tangible objects she holds to the light, turns over and over, eager to discover a never before glimpsed sparkle or a surprising divot in their familiar shapes." --NPR

"Full of narrative risk and untrammeled lyricism, [ Aftershocks] fulfills the grieving author's directive to herself: to construct a story that reconstructs her world." --WASHINGTON POST

"Throughout the book, Owusu writes poignantly about belonging and assimilation...as she grapples with identity and her willingness to erase the most vibrant parts of herself in an attempt to belong. Owusu is unflinching in examining herself, which is commendable... In the end, Owusu ultimately answers what home is. Her definition is pure and restorative to read. 'I am made of the earth, flesh, ocean, blood and bone of all the places I tried to belong to and all the people I long for. I am pieces. I am whole. I am home.'" --THE NEW YORK TIMES

"In her searing debut memoir, Owusu analyzes her shaky sense of belonging and identity as she reflects on her fractured family unit and upbringing." --TIME

"Nadia Owusu's debut memoir, Aftershocks, has those residual tremors that follow an earthquake as its central metaphor, and the author had plenty of life-shaking events around which to orient her narrative. There is something fairy tale-like about Owusu's story, an orphan-like existence of struggle and survival, but there is no fairy godmother who rescues this heroine--just a growing sense of self-awareness to orient her in a troubling world." --VOGUE

"This is a magnificent, complex assessment of selfhood and why it matters." --ELLE

"It takes a skillful hand to weave complex concepts so seamlessly into a narrative, and Owusu executes this masterfully. By relating the events of her upbringing, she is also telling the story of her father and the history of the countries that had become home to her. Whether it's coming to understand her sexuality or examining herself through the lens of race, Owusu takes the reader deeply through her thoughts and experiences." --LOS ANGELES REVIEW OF BOOKS

Aftershocks offers an incredible account of a life both privileged and fraught, and a rigorous accounting of living as heir and stranger to so many histories, voices and identities." --SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE

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Tags: Aftershocks , Owusu , Nadia