‘Dear Senthuran’ Review: A Memoir of Life, Death and Life Again

Akwaeke Emezi (they/them), a Nigerian artist and writer, published their memoir, “Dear Senthuran: A Black Spirit Memoir,” in 2021. The memoir followed three critically acclaimed novels, including the New York Times bestseller, “The Death of Vivek Oji,” and three other titles, such as the popular “You Made A Fool of Death with Your Beauty.” Remarkably, Emezi published seven titles in only four years, spanning across a variety of genres, including novels, poetry and memoir.

“Dear Senthuran” takes several moments to be vulnerable, personal and candid about what their life’s work has looked like and demanded from them, alongside their embodiment as an ogbanje spirit. Emezi has been clear from the beginning of their public career that they are not human, but rather they are a god, ogbanje specifically, which is a trickster spirit in Igbo ontology. This trickster spirit does often live long; they die only to come back in the form of another child.

“Dear Senthuran” spends a great deal of time discussing Igbo ontology, alongside Emezi’s personal experience of it. The title is indeed fitting as a Black Spirit memoir.

Emezi also discusses their upbringing in Nigeria, their struggle with suicidality and staying alive as a spirit, and their marked success as a writer and artist, signing six-figure deals on books and television adaptations. Emezi recounts their story through letters addressed to chosen family, other non-humans, past lovers, Toni Morrison and friends, including a friend named Senthuran. Emezi says they started the idea of this book when exchanging emails with Senthuran and enjoyed how their name sounded and would fit well after “dear.” As such, “Dear Senthuran” is a memoir of intimacy, intensity and story.

This memoir stands out from others in the literary world due to its unique approach of reading like a story, with a narrative that swells and stretches out, recalling moments of reality through magic and metaphor. Emezi’s expertise in creating a big picture element is evident in the memoir, as several themes and moments are introduced that only become fully realized later on. The memories are strung together in a way that leads the reader to a deeper understanding of how the author has discovered, learned and seen the world around them.

The difficulty of memoir is to tell the story. Not convince. Not conceal. Not re-arrange with too much hindsight or spite or resentment. But rather a memoir can be a mask. In recounting a conversation with an ex-lover about authenticity, they write, “If you accept that masks are gateways to larger truths,” The magician says, “then you can slip from the bondage of what is considered authentic. You wear the mask, you are the thing…The god cannot be inauthentic.”

‘Dear Senthuran’ Summary: Up Close and Personal

“Dear Senthuran” is a packed story without being too lengthy or detail-heavy. Unlike the many memoirs that follow a linear timeline of recounting events, Emezi tells a story through understanding their journey as several sets of lessons and impressions; certain moments are mentioned and later expanded upon. “Dear Senthuran” is very, very vulnerable, which can keep you reading but also make you feel like you’ve walked into a room you’re unsure you were invited into, particularly in regard to letters that discuss suicide attempts and ideations of cannibalism (in relation to love).

Emezi has immense skills in storytelling and guides the reader from experience to experience to show how a certain impression paved the way for the next experience. The first chapters discuss Emezi growing up in Nigeria, where they witnessed a fair amount of death as well as accidents involving the flesh. The following chapter, Dear Eugene, then flows into descriptions of Emezi’s own surgeries and changing of their body to better suit their gender and their spirit, including top surgery and a hysterectomy. They detail how it took them some time to realize that their trans-ness was connected to their spirit and changing the human vessel to better suit it. They write, “By now, I’ve come to think of mutilation as a shift from wrongness to alignment, and of scars as a form of adornment that celebrates this shift.”

The memoir focuses greatly on Emezi’s adult life, including traveling, the explosion and success of their career, and a lover whose heartbreak was incredibly significant to Emezi. They divulge what success has looked like for them, and how they dropped out of their MFA and were constantly disregarded. They talk about buying their first house and becoming debt-free. On the flip side of this success has been immense battles with life, and staying alive; they discuss at length varying suicide attempts and wrestling to understand their dead-ness in a living flesh. They talk about resurrection, too, about the unrelenting nature of life and accepting their purpose, which is to make their work. They also share what a god may hunger for, which is war, unraveling and domination.

“Dear Senthuran” is a mix of style and flow, where metaphors stand in for certain events, especially desire, sex and heartbreak. Emezi expands on the power of community and not walking alone in the world, as well as the ways queerness and transness have saved their life.

Emezi is very well-known in literary, art, and cultural spaces and places, and perhaps recognizable in a larger zeitgeist, especially after a feature interview on The Daily Show with Trevor Noah or their cover on Time Magazine. This is to say, their success and visibility is undeniable. In the hypervisibility of it all, there are also sound bites and a lack of understanding of Emezi’s ‘identity.’ It is difficult to get Igbo ontology in sound bites, a singular interview, or even “Freshwater.” In “Dear Senthuran”, there is an incredible intimacy that Emezi unravels in regards to being a god, and it being a journey that has been laid with doubt, critique and willful misunderstanding.

“Dear Senthuran” catalyzes a feeling of suspicion or acknowledgment of ego as well, a common critique or just feature of Emezi’s persona and, in this case, writing.

While “Dear Senthuran” is very unique as a memoir, a comparable title may be “Heavy” by Kiese Laymon, written as one long letter to his mother. Stacy Ann Chin’s “On the Other Side of Paradise” is very different in its storytelling. Her memoir almost reads like a novel in that much of Ann’s life is recounted verbatim. There is something about the claiming of power, the leaving of home — because it was necessary — and queer identity that could resonate with readers.

Audience and Genre: A Memoir for Literature Lovers and Fans of Black, LGBTQ and Spiritual Content

Audiences who may enjoy “Dear Senthuran” are readers of memoir, readers of Emezi’s other work, readers of Black and African spiritual work, readers invested in queer experiences, and readers of vivid, mystical and grounded stories.

Readers who know Emezi through a public persona may enjoy this title because it goes beyond the sound bites that get attached to the author. There is a generous revealing Emezi does about how they have come to understand themselves as a god, and navigate personal power, pain and heartbreak.

In the process of learning about their life, travels, buying and adorning a home, love and loss, we also learn about their friends and loved ones to whom they address every letter to.

Another audience grouping would be creatives and people who may enjoy peering into the life of a writer, creator and, as of their 2023 debut, a musician as well.

Academics have also written about and through “Dear Senthuran,” especially in relation to mapping queer identities within Igbo ontology, and in a way, queering death.

Lastly, the audience for this memoir could be anyone who regularly reads literature and admires quality writing, challenging writing and appreciates nuanced storytelling. Readers of literature would also enjoy this book because the writing is truly masterful. The chapters are often brief, facilitating a flow, and a capacity to keep reading

However, for readers that cannot quite stomach descriptive passages of suicide ideation and suicide attempts, as well as vivid ideation of cannibalism, metaphoric and real, I would not recommend.

Three Cs: Compelling, Clear, Concise

Editorial Note: We believe these three factors are important for evaluating general writing quality across every aspect of the book. Before you get into further analysis, here’s a quick breakdown to clarify how we’re using these words:

• Compelling: Does the author consistently write in a way that would make most readers emotionally invested in the book’s content?
• Clear: Are most sentences and parts of the book easy enough to read and understand?
• Concise: Are there sections or many sentences that could be cut? Does the book have pacing problems?

Compelling: Personal and Well-Written

“Dear Senthuran” is a compelling memoir because of its style. Emezi’s style is bold, unabashed and very directive. There are clear points Emezi is making about their embodiment as a god, about the ways their career and their embodiment have nearly killed them, and about how they want to be big, and take up space and over everything, make more and more work. They don’t divulge greatly into their more or less estranged relationship with some family members, but they do spend one letter on describing finding their deity mother, giving readers both context and insight into more detailed practices of Igbo ontology.

This memoir is also compelling because it is vulnerable and, for better or worse, descriptive of innermost desires and thoughts, the one’s they’re willing to share of course. There is an ex-lover who dances around in the memoir, the magician, and he is referenced as someone Emezi was flying to see or someone they loved, or someone who loved them. We don’t learn about how they became an ex until you are well into the memoir, but there is a chapter where Emezi discusses cannibalism with the magician, and how that was a form of intimacy for them: imagining how they’d wear or eat one another. Another chapter discusses sex, but entirely through a magical metaphor, which can lend itself to recounting more for the feelings than the act(s) themselves.

The vulnerability and steady-ness with which Emezi discusses their suicidality is careful and considered. They contextually describe where the sadness and darkness would crop up around, they discussed how touring their work nearly killed them and how chosen family and companions truly saved parts of their life.

Another compelling element of the memoir is the transparency around their career. There is a letter/chapter that is dedicated to just relaying their experiences with publishing. They detail how much money they’ve made, how much they’ve sold work for, how they’ve negotiated and gotten better at it, how the limit doesn’t really seem to exist, and how they’ve spent some of this money, including purchasing a home in New Orleans, affectionately called Shiny, short for Shiny the god house. They are a maximalist in interior design and in fashion too, and their memoir and storytelling matches.

Clear: A Big Picture

The epistolary form facilitates clarity. Immediately readers know whom Emezi is speaking to.

Concise: Briefs Letters That Keep a Brisk Pace

Emezi leaves out extraneous details we can often get tripped up on, which is a writing feat. Each letter is quite brief, about as long as you would write a detailed letter to a friend. It keeps the pace moving while stringing together a number of reflections, moments in time and major happenings.

Character Development: Emezi, Letter Receivers, the Ex and the Gods

In “Dear Senthuran,” the most fleshed-out characters were Emezi as the narrator, Katherine and Eugene as repeated letter receivers and dear friends to the narrator (though not too much detail about them as people comes through beyond sharing certain moments with Emezi), the magician and ex-lover, and the gods within Emezi’s life. Characters were developed through the letter writing process, where Emezi would address the letter and recount a certain memory shared with the addressee at the time, whether it be the publication of one of their books, or a dinner in a city somewhere between the continent of Africa, the Caribbean, Europe or the U.S.

We learn about the magician through consistent mentions of him as a character and snippets of important conversations to Emezi, which built up to two large and intensive chapters about the nature of their relationship, a moment of betrayal and the toll it took, and what it revealed later. Their recounting of the breakup and the subsequent toll it took was boisterous and big. It had elements of heartbreak many of us know, but also elements o a higher disappointment and a higher lesson, given Emezi saw this person as someone unwilling to commit to power and companionship.

One character who is referenced but unknown is Emezi’s therapist. There are a number of lines that begin with “My therapist said…”. Emezi’s therapist, however, seems to play an important role in their life, grounding some of their thinking and offering sound advice on how to navigate the relationships in their life.

Senthuran, another letter recipient, is — funny enough — not a major character. Emezi named their memoir after this person because they enjoyed how their name sounded, and how it would sound after the word, “dear.”

This choice offset some of the polish of this memoir. Memoir is very vulnerable, but it is still curated and polished to tell a story and share certain pieces of the author. So for Emezi to simply enjoy the phonetics of a name, and then work on a format from that sound, feels open and welcoming.

Prose Style: Metaphors and Self Possession

There are regular usages of subtle but striking metaphors from plant propagation to thinking about the possibility of living, to burying oneself inside of a home. Emezi has honed a deeply unique language. It is lyrical and vivid without being extraneous.

“I am dead in more ways than I expected. It doesn’t feel bad. Too many other things feel worse for that to feel bad”.

They are able to communicate complicated and maddening feelings with an ease.

Cultural and Political Significance: Forging Connections Between Spirituality, Gender and Creativity

Akwaeke’s work often centers the lived experiences and realities of Black queer and LGBT people. Their young adult novel, “Pet,” follows the coming of age of a Black trans girl, and the protagonist in “You Made a Fool of Death with Your Beauty” is bisexual.

In this memoir, they write about their own gender and spirit-affirming surgeries, including a hysterectomy and top surgery. They forge a connection between the changing of the body in gender-affirming ways as well as changing of the body in spirit-affirming ways.

There’s also an important significance to their writing about recovery from self-harm. After a grueling tour of “Freshwater” for Emezi, provoking feelings of harm and also loneliness, they recount how a friend suggested they travel with a companion, someone whose only role is to be along for the ride with Emezi. They write about how a companion was then implemented in all their touring following, making work and life a lot more possible and safe.

Without being contrived, “Dear Senthuran” details resurrection and possibilities for a tomorrow that is shaped entirely in one’s own image.

Critiquing the Critics: Misunderstanding, and Emezi vs. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Emezi has received both a great amount of praise and great amount of criticism for their existing body of work, as well as this memoir. In a review from The Guardian, there is a disingenuous take on the book, using Emezi’s words against them and highlighting small details as a character assessment. For example, in the caption image for the piece, the author chose to describe Emezi as someone who paid for medical surgeries by siphoning student loans. Further, the author construes their transparency about money as bragging about how rich they are.

There is also undoubtedly critique for “Dear Senthuran” around the interpretation of Igbo ontology. There are scattered discourses, largely across X/Twitter and often while disrespecting Emezi’s pronouns and gender identity, that accuse Emezi of utilizing Igbo ontology to a western audience who is none the wiser. Critiques of Emezi’s ego also enter the ring.

This issue is somewhat heightened by the fairly public discord between Emezi and fellow Nigerian writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. In 2021, Adichie published a three-part letter on their website titled “IT IS OBSCENE” that read largely like a takedown of two young, queer Nigerian writers, one of whom is Emezi. Adichie accuses the two of abusing her kindness and status and also of being disingenuous enough to call her out on her repeated transphobic comments online but refrain from emailing her or calling her, as they had access to. Chimamanda ended the letter stating that social media has significantly and negatively impacted the minds of young people, where honest conversation is barred, and groupthink and punishment reign.

There is also surface-level praise for “Dear Senthuran,” through reading the book as one of triumph and overcoming adversity. These kinds of interpretations are reductive for all authors, and particularly for Black authors who are often pigeonholed as desperate or disenfranchised and then over time, emancipated and resilient, removing agency, nuance, and ultimately the point. Toni Morrison wrote in “Sula”, “Because each had discovered years before that they were neither white nor male, and that all freedom and triumph was forbidden to them, they had to set about creating something else to be”.

“Dear Senthuran” is about life, some moments of resurrection, death, and life as a god and a spirit; these realities cannot fit into a three-act, Eurocentric trope of resiliency.

Additionally, there has been praise in the public sphere (book clubs, social media, etc), in the literary world (nominated for), and academically for Emezi’s work. The Northwest Review published an article that locates queerness and Igbo ontology and bridges spaces between them, as Emezi experiences both an ogbanje embodiment as well as a trans one.

Reviewer’s Personal Opinion: ‘Dear Senthuran’ Insists You Can Make the World in Your Image

Perhaps it’s clear from this review that I enjoyed this memoir as much as I was challenged by it. The writing was incredibly polished, the style of intimate letters made the work engaging to read. As someone who has read other works by Emezi, I appreciated the vulnerability shared. I found myself reading with a pen, underlining and putting stars next to several passages.

What often gets discussed about Emezi as a person is modesty, lack of it, and ego. And while I sometimes came to those conclusions, especially in the letter addressed to Toni Morrison, I also found myself prompted further into questions about morality and policing ideas of ego and modesty. Perhaps one of the most sinister elements of colonialism was how totalizing it was. It isn’t just the death and expropriation of land, destruction of culture, demonizing of most of the world’s population, or the sustained violation of the bodies of those colonized, but it was also the theft of imagination, and the distortion of it entirely. Emezi’s writing asked me to get more comfortable with the importance of power and of making your contribution to the world (and other worlds unseen) with style, unabashedly.

The book gets more and more flexible and exhales as you read it. I think Emezi’s work encourages readers to stop reading for comprehension or literal answers. This memoir is not attempting to freeze something in time; it’s an offering of their map and their embodiment — of fighting it, of hating it, of loving and fucking in it, in making mistakes and being arrogant in it — and finding spiritual parents and companions and surrendering, and surrendering again.

It’s not a contrived ending either; it doesn’t feel like it’s forcing itself to have a happy ending or a hopeful one. It reads like a resolve and something that could only be written after going through a couple of life-altering and ending things. It reads somewhat like “on the other side of a hurdle,” but in their own acknowledgments they dedicate the book to those who see the book for what it is. You get to decide.

‘Dear Senthuran’: An Intimate, Serious Read

“Dear Senthuran” has a lot to offer to readers, both in content and in style. There is softness and intimacy cultivated by the epistolary format of the memoir. Simultaneously, you can understand some parts of Igbo ontology through a more personal lens. It can feel like the difference between reading a list or article and hearing someone’s story. And importantly, it is their story, and not a stand-in or defining recollection of an ogbanje embodiment.

“Dear Senthuran” reminded me a lot of Donald Glover’s “Atlanta.” Now while these may seem like distant comparisons, what I mean is that both invite you, and sometimes demand you, to understand the characters through their reactions and adjustments and human (and non-human) errors. In “Atlanta”, from season to season, there is no explanation on how the characters have gone from broke and struggling, to incredibly comfortable, touring Europe, to then owning farmland. But you are there, watching, and learning the characters through their demeanor, what they choose to wear and eat, and how they make sense of the people around them. You don’t need every detail about the come-up, moving apartments, or haircuts; all you need is them.

“Dear Senthuran,” as a memoir, does something similar, where not every detail is included in the writing, but you do get a deeper comprehension of Emezi through the scenes they share and how they’ve carried the lessons they’ve learned. Traveling to Nigeria to find their deity mother, how their heart broke and what betrayal did to them, or how they plan to continue to stay alive are big picture moments that tell us about Emezi without every detail of the plane ride or time of the relationship. You get to see, and not consume.

This memoir deserves a 5/5 for Emezi’s writing, clarity, and vulnerability, all wonderfully polished. It is a book that is challenging and truly engages curiosity and depth out of a reader.

Buying and Rental Options

As always, let us know if we’re missing an option here. Send us the link, and we’ll include it if we can.

E-Commerce Text and Audio Purchases

• Amazon
• Bookshop.org
• Barnes & Noble
• Books-A-Million
• Cavalier House Books
• Chaucer’s Books
• City Lights Bookstore
• 1977 Books
• Through the Author’s Website
• Penguin Random House

E-Commerce Audio Only

• Audible
• Libro.fm

Physical Location Purchase

Emezi’s work in its nature is reckoning with colonialism, gender, sexuality and spirit, and they often uplift other Black writers and Black bookstores. If possible, your local bookstore or, if you’re in a place where it’s possible, a Black-owned bookstore, could be the place to get a copy of “Dear Senthuran.”

Physical Rental Options

• Local libraries
• The title is available in select university libraries, including NYU

Digital Rental Options

• Libby, the library reading app
• Your local library might have a rental app
• It seems like the title is available digitally for Harvard students and faculty who have the necessary login