Death of Vivek Oji (Emezi) - Author Bio

Author Bio
• Birth—1987
• Where—Umuahia, Nigeria
• Education—M.P.A., New York University
• Awards—(see below)
• Currently—lives in New Orleans, Louisiana, USA



Akwaeke Emezi is the author of The Death of Vivek Oji, a New York Times bestseller, published in 2020.

When Emezi's first novel, Freshwater (2019), was published, it was named a New York Times Notable Book and shortlisted for the PEN/Hemingway Award, the NYPL Young Lions Fiction Award, the Lambda Literary Award, and the Center for Fiction's First Novel Prize, and longlisted for the International Dublin Literary Award, the Women's Prize for Fiction, the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction, the Brooklyn Public Library Literary Prize, the Wellcome Book Prize, the Aspen Words Literary Prize, and the VCU Cabell First Novelist Award. Freshwater was also awarded the Otherwise Award and named a Best Book of the Decade by BuzzFeed and a Best Book of the Year by The New Yorker, NPR, and the Chicago Public Library.

Emezi's second book, Pet (2019), was a finalist for the National Book Award for Young People's Literature.

Selected as a "5 Under 35" honoree by the National Book Foundation, Emezi has been profiled by Vogue (photographed by Annie Leibovitz) and by Vanity Fair as part of "The New Hollywood Guard." Freshwater has been translated into ten languages and is currently in development as a TV series at FX, with Emezi writing and executive producing with Tamara P. Carter. (From the author.)