AFTERSHOCKS, dispatches from the frontlines of identity

289pp., paperback, Reprint, London, (2021) 2022

 

Winner of the 2019 nonfiction Whiting Award.

"A devastating memoir about identity, immigration and fractured society from the daughter of an Armenian American mother and Ghanaian father." Independent

"Nadia Owusu's debut book tells the incredible story of her childhood. How does a girl - abandoned by her mother at age 2 and orphaned at 13 when her beloved father dies - find her place in the world? Aftershocks is the story of Nadia creating her own solid ground across countries and continents. This is an exceptionally gripping and hard-to-put-down memoir of a remarkable young woman - I can't wait to see what she does next." Malala Yousafzai

"Nadia Owusu has lived multiple lives. And each has demanded much of her. She has met and surpassed those demands with her memoir Aftershocks. Owusu is half-Armenian, half-Ghanaian; socially privileged and psychologically wounded. Her task and burden are threefold: to chronicle the historical wounds and legacies of each country; to chart her own descent into grief, mania and madness; to begin the work of emotional reconstruction. She does so with unerring honesty and in prose that is both rigorous and luminous." Margo Jefferson, author of Negroland: A memoir

Nadia Owusu grew up in Rome, Dar-es-Salaam, Addis Ababa, Kumasi, Kampala and London. Currently she lives in Brooklyn. Her essay chapbook, So Devilish a Fire, was a winner of the Atlas Review chapbook series. She is an associate director at Living Cities, an economic racial justice organisation.