RoXXie
Written on Jul 28, 2021
'One of the most moving books of the new year' STYLIST 'Gorgeous and unsettling' NEW YORK TIMES 'Brilliant and devastating...tender and lacerating' PANDORA SYKES 'One of the literary world's most promising new voices' REDI have lived in disaster and disaster has lived in me. Our shared languages are thunder and reverberation. When Nadia Owusu was two years old her mother abandoned her and her baby sister and fled from Tanzania back to the US. When she was thirteen her beloved Ghanaian father died of cancer. She and her sister were left alone, with a stepmother they didn't like, adrift. Nadia Owusu is a woman of many languages, homelands and identities. She grew up in Rome, Dar-es-Salaam, Addis Ababa, Kumasi, Kampala and London. And for every new place there was a new language, a new identity and a new home. At times she has felt stateless, motherless and identity-less. At others, she has had multiple identities at war within her. It's no wonder she started to feel fault lines in her sense of self. It's no wonder that those fault lines eventually ruptured. Aftershocks is the account of how she hauled herself out of the wreckage. It is the intimate story behind the news of immigration and division dominating contemporary politics. Nadia Owusu's astonishingly moving and incredibly timely memoir is a nuanced portrait of globalisation from the inside in a fractured world in crisis.
- ISBN10 1529342864
- ISBN13 9781529342864
- Publish Date 4 February 2021 (first published 12 January 2021)
- Publish Status Active
- Publish Country GB
- Publisher Hodder & Stoughton
- Imprint Sceptre
- Format Hardcover
- Pages 320
- Language English
Reviews
Quirky Cat
Written on Jun 28, 2021
Aftershocks is the debut novel of Nadia Owusu, and it is a compelling and fascinating memoir. If you're going to choose one memoir to read this year (that's probably going to be the case for me), let it be this one!
Nadia Owusu struggles with and explores the concept of identity here as she delves into the trauma and history of her past. Abandoned by her mother when she was only two years old, Nadia has struggled with her identity.
Her story reads as a coming-of-age tale, but with the reality of a memoir. It's beautiful and heartbreaking all in one and is absolutely worth reading.
“No story, no metaphor, is innocent of theft, omission, obscuration, or violence.”
Aftershocks is such a profound memoir. It's almost hard to believe this is a debut novel, as Nadia Owusu deals with incredibly complex subjects and concerns. It's so wonderfully human, showcasing all of the good and bad that people have to offer.
I love that before the book even started, Nadia Owusu made a point of warning the reader that this was not going to be a linear read. Her story unfolded in a way that felt organic while not actually being chronologically accurate. It was fascinating and not something I've seen before (then again, I don't read many memoirs, so maybe it is common? I don't know).
“Without other humans there is no such thing as shame.”
The comparison to an earthquake and its aftershocks is both evocative and accurate. We hardly ever think of emotional events represented through physical means, yet in so many ways, it is true. It's comparisons such as these that really hit home in Owusu's writing.
Read more reviews at Quirky Cat's Fat Stacks