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

challenging dark emotional funny hopeful informative inspiring reflective medium-paced

5.0

“I know many people survive, but I also think people glorify resilience a little too much, forgetting that the fragile ones simply die as the world walks on over their bones. There are some things we shouldn’t be boasting about. 
 
TITLE—Dear Senthuran 
AUTHOR—Akwaeke Emezi 
PUBLISHED—2021 
 
GENRE—memoir 
SETTING—liminal spaces 
MAIN THEMES/SUBJECTS—being a Black creator, being nonhuman, neurodivergency, love & friendship, identity 
 
WRITING STYLE—⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ 
BONUS ELEMENT/S—multiple references to Helen Oyeyemi and her books 🥰 
PHILOSOPHY—⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ 
 
“I remember how it felt, and I know it was true. Maybe not in this life or this dimension, but it was true, and I miss it so much.” 
 
I feel like this isn’t really a book one reviews so much as rereads and recommends endlessly forever and ever amen. My “reviews” exist as endless marginalia and pagetabs inside my physical hardcopy of this book and they’re a mite too personal to share here anyway. ☺️ 
 
Basically this memoir style book is written as a series of letters to people in Emezi’s life, both named and unnamed, friends, other writers and artists, family, influences, enemies, and abusers. They cover themes from friendship to love to Blackness to Otherness to Neurodivergency and to being a Creator. (I highly recommend this book to *all* aspiring creators—*especially* writers.) I particularly (and highly personally) loved the chapters/letters “Deity | Dear Eloghosa” and “Dreams | Dear Katherine”. 
 
Akwaeke Emezi is an inspiration on many different levels but I’m never not going to be amazed by the fact that they have been willing to share themselves and their story and their experiences via such gorgeous and raw prose again and again. I am very much looking forward to everything else they create forever and ever. ❤️ 
 
“Alone, there’s just me, and I see myself clearly.” 
 
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ 
 
TW // suicidal ideation, suicide attempt 
 
Further Reading— 
  • Freshwater, and everything else by Akwaeke Emezi
  • The Icarus Girl, and everything else by Helen Oyeyemi
  • The Bone People, and Te Kaihau The Windeater, by Keri Hulme
  • Zami, by Audre Lorde
  • The Night Before the Day, by Ailo Gaup
  • The Dangers of Smoking in Bed, by Mariana Enríquez
  • The Haunting of Hill House, by Shirley Jackson
  • The Nesting, by C. J. Cooke

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