A review by nerdyprettythings
Dear Senthuran: A Black Spirit Memoir by Akwaeke Emezi

dark reflective medium-paced

3.5

As always, Emezi’s writing is great. There’s repetition in the letters, but each of them does build on the author’s early writing days through the publication of Dear Senthuran. Emezi never shies away from difficult topics in their writing, and this book embraces them wholeheartedly, from suicide attempts to dreaming about murdering people. I’ve always been into it - their writing feels so honest. But here, the content was disturbing in a way it hasn’t been for me before, not least because the stories that show the author’s humanity - their struggle with mental illness, their heartbreaks, their hard work and determination to live off their writing - are all chalked up to god’s intervention. From the perspective of someone who’s intentionally moved away from religion, it’s really uncomfortable to hear someone so quickly dismiss humanity (“I hate humans”) while clinging so strongly to religion and godhood as a reason for living. Emezi explicitly rejects the idea that any of it is a metaphor. So while I read the humanity in their stories, my reading of it was denied by the text itself. 
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