Akwaeke Emezi

Akwaeke Emezi is an lgbo and Tamil writer and video artist, best known for their debut novel Freshwater, a semi-autobiographical story starring a trans protagonist named Ada who is an ogbanje or "spirit child". Their second book, Pet, released on September 10, 2019, is about a transgender teenager named Jam living in a world where adults refuse to acknowledge the existence of monsters. A third book, titled The Death of Vivek Oji, is due out in 2020.

Emezi wrote Freshwater while working towards their Master's of Fine Arts degree at Syracuse University, and it was published in 2018. In 2019, it was nominated for the Women's Prize for Fiction; this was the first time a trans or nonbinary author had been nominated for the prize. The judges were not aware of Emezi being nonbinary when Freshwater was selected (the book jacket referred to the author with "she/her"), but Emezi was reportedly happy to be among the selected.

Freshwater received multiple other accolades as well, including the African Speculative Fiction Society's 2019 Nommo Award for Best Novel and the 2019 Otherwise Award, for sci-fi and fantasy "works that expand and explore our understanding of gender". Otherwise Award juror Bogi Takács said, "Freshwater gives me hope, room to grow into myself as a reader, and a sense of relation that emerges across continents and traditions; with all our commonalities and differences". Variety.com reported that FX was developing a TV series based on the novel.