Reviews with content warning for Sexual content - Dear Senthuran: A Black Spirit Memoir

Y'all, Emezi will do it and then do it again. A world of worlds live inside of their head, and they produce with the efficiency of an assembly-line author, yet each book is whole and unique and rejuvenating. Emezi lifts up the Queer in all the facets that the word can encompass and leaves a sense of refresh and enlightenment in their wake.

Even more affecting here for the artist and art-inclined among us, Emezi gives a sense of transparency that is often lacking in the business of the arts that can feel so intimidating, especially to historically marginalized creators. To that end, Emezi weaves in a level of knowledge and advice that is reminiscent of such workbook memoirs as You Are a Badass by Jen Sincero and Minority Leader by Stacey Abrams.

This work also bolsters what I have come to find about my own reading life. What seems to leave the greatest impact on me as a reader are works of memoir, auto-, and experimental fiction by Queer creators. Works that Queer the space of writing while being Queer themselves, and works that peel back the exterior and interior process of creation that help me access that space within myself. (Now to take Emezi's advice and start letting that inspire, instead of intimidate!)

Quotes:
I tell him that my search for somewhere to be is really a search for self, and the only self I feel at home with is one that doesn't exist, not anymore, one that's bee taken apart, whipped into dust. (2)
The magician tells me that other people can't do what I do, and maybe I believe him a little, but that's not the point. People can do such spectacular things if you forget to tell them it's impossible. I want them to try. (22)
Illusions are the best things to burn, I think, but some people consider such fires to be threats, and those who start them even worse. (24)
People would read Freshwater and speculate about what my career would have looked like after starting with a book so bold. I would be less of a threat, they wouldn't hesitate to call the book what it was - not the way they do when you're alive and young, Black and pretty and fucking talented, and you don't pretend like you don't know all of this. (30)
I am, at once, the person most bent on my death and the person most successful at keeping me alive; even the devil won't take me. (44)
So, you could just show a terrible thing and let the showing be the strength of it? I thought it was brilliant. (77)
'I stood at the border, stood at the edge, and claimed it as central,' you said, your voice weighted with intent. 'Claimed it as central and let the rest of the world move over to where I was.' (77)
You should see my centers, Ms. Morrison. They're glorious. They pull with the force of a planet and I'm patient; it's only a matter of time. (80)
The rules are clear, no matter the stakes: when anyone fucks with the work, burn them to the ground. (87)
Everything advances, mutates, we are in new worlds constantly (154)
It gets so ugly, this thing of punishing other for prioritizing their well-being over reassuring insecurities. (206)
It's never too late - that's a human lie of time, there is no late, there is mostly now because now is so flexible, I find. You can change a whole life, a whole world, inside of a now. (213)
'You write when you are most fragile, because you're changing from one form to another. These transformations and transmutations that take place - it has to be painful.' (227)

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readingthroughinfinity's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional reflective medium-paced

4.75

This is the most unique, compelling memoir I've read in many years. Through letters to their close friends and family, Akwaeke Emezi discusses their experience of being trans and getting surgery, their mental health, writing, chronic pain, the publishing industry, their identity as a god or ogbanje, and their spiritual connection with this world and with death. This is a fascinating read and one that introduced me to so many new concepts and ideas. Emezi really is a transcendent writer.

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tangleroot_eli's review

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challenging emotional inspiring reflective slow-paced

Beautiful. Inspiring. Infuriating.

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solenodon's review against another edition

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challenging emotional slow-paced

5.0

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hogsandwich's review

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challenging dark mysterious reflective medium-paced

4.5

Theyre definitely a genius. Theyre also, I suspect, very difficult to be around.

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laurenleigh's review

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challenging dark emotional medium-paced

4.5

This memoir by Awaeke Emezi is written in letters, as they explore their gender identity, their romantic and sexual partnerships, their life as an author, and their multiplicity. The epistolary format invites the reader into an intimate space, at times voyeuristic when Emezi gets into some intense detail. Some of these details, mainly relating to suicide and gore, were hard for me to read. I am a strict completionist, but even I had to give up on the titular “Dear Senthuran” letter, which is also rightly titled “Gore.” But I understand, at least to some degree, why it’s important for Emezi to push boundaries. Their life, their embodiment in human form, and in turn, their writing, is all so raw. It’s bursting at the seams with life and intensity. I highly recommend their debut novel, Freshwater, and I especially suggest reading that before this memoir, so you have an understanding of Emezi’s multiplicity and Igbo ontology. It’s all so fascinating to me, and their work is like nothing else I’ve ever read.

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merin_aran's review against another edition

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dark emotional reflective sad slow-paced

3.0

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translove's review

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emotional hopeful reflective

5.0

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