A call to return: rerouting healing pathways in Akwaeke Emezi’s Freshwater

Abstract

Recent scholarship on the novel Freshwater (2018) by Akwaeke Emezi has compellingly argued for approaching this work as a postcolonial trauma narrative, depicting the alienation from African spirituality with the material and spiritual worlds constantly colliding, restructuring their borders. In this narrative, Akwaeke Emezi illustrates the psychospiritual impacts of trauma by using a Nigerian Igbo worldview to weave Ada’s journey as an ọgbanje, a spirit child that dies and comes back repeatedly. However, scholarship on Emezi’s debut novel has yet to analyse the different pathways of healing that African cosmology offers as Ada strives to survive multiple ordeals before eventually encountering harmonious communion with the deities that influenced their life. This article argues that the physical, psychological, and spiritual traumas Ada encounters not only mirror the ọgbanje cycle but also demonstrate efforts to heal from the lack of cognizance of their spiritual self. To develop this analysis, this article combines trauma theory, African diaspora studies, and postcolonial studies. It prioritises African diaspora studies due to trauma theory’s limitations when it comes to identifying and analysing modes of healing that transcend material bounds and experiences from Western points of view. Thus, this article highlights the healing potential of diasporic African cultures.