Acclaimed novelist Akwaeke Emezi makes their riveting and timely young adult debut with a book that asks difficult questions about what choices you can make when the society around you is in denial. More about this book >

• YOUNG PEOPLE'S LITERATURE FINALIST National Book Awards 2019 >

An extraordinary debut novel, Freshwater explores the surreal experience of having a fractured self. It centers around a young Nigerian woman, Ada, who develops separate selves within her as a result of being born "with one foot on the other side." More about this book >

• HONOREE 5 Under 35 2018 >

  Selected by Carmen Maria Machado >

  Carmen Maria Machado

  

  Carmen Maria Machado’s fiction and nonfiction have appeared in The New Yorker, Granta, NPR, Guernica, Electric Literature, Gulf Coast, Tin House, Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy, The Best Horror of the Year, Year’s Best Weird Fiction, and Best Women’s Erotica. Her short story “The Husband Stitch” was nominated for the Shirley Jackson and Nebula Awards, awarded a Pushcart Prize Special Mention, and longlisted for the James Tiptree, Jr. Literary Award. She holds an MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and has been awarded fellowships and residencies from the Copernicus Society of America, the Elizabeth George Foundation, the CINTAS Foundation, the Speculative Literature Foundation, the University of Iowa, Yaddo, Hedgebrook, and the Millay Colony for the Arts. She is the artist in residence at the University of Pennsylvania, and lives in Philadelphia with her wife.