Fragmentation and Igbo Cosmology in Akwaeke Emzi's novel Freshwater

Abstract

Akwaeke Emezi's novel Freshwater chronicles the crises of identity faced by Ada, as she is possessed by Igbo spirits, the ogbanje. After growing up in Nigeria, she leaves for America for university, wherein she further feels the rifts between Igbo and Western epistemologies. Emezi renders the manner in which the ogbanje possesses her as biological, her very existence is an iteration of Igbo cosmologies and its deities. Though Ada initially equates the fragmented identities that reside within her 'broken', as perpetuated by colonial frameworks, its upon her return to Nigeria she discovers her own 'place in this world' (Emezi 219), Through an analysis of liminality, imagery, and narrative technique, I argue that embracing the fragmentation of the self offers a more complex, nuanced conception of wholeness, grounded in the 'twoness' and fluidity of Igbo ontological structures.