Praise for The Death of Vivek Oji "[A] dazzling, devastating story . . . A puzzle wrapped in beautiful language, raising questions of identity and loyalty that are as unanswerable as they are important." --The New York Times Book Review
"Electrifying" --O: The Oprah Magazine "Brilliant . . . This is a book full of line-level beauty; a book of multiple perspectives, each rendered organically and fully; a book of mystery and community and love. . . . A special read that will not soon be forgotten." --Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, author of Friday Black "Remarkably assured and graceful. . . . Emezi has once again encouraged us to embrace a fuller spectrum of human experience." --The Washington Post "This affecting novel of self-invention . . . poses searching questions about gender and acceptance." --The New Yorker
"Instead of getting flattened by death, Vivek becomes more vivid on each page. He glows like the sun, impossible to look at directly yet utterly charismatic. I missed him when the novel was done." --NPR
"One of the most highly acclaimed novels of 2020." --Newsweek
"Powerful . . . [a] slim book that contains as wide a range of experience as any saga -- a little bit like Vivek's brief yet gloriously expansive life." --Los Angeles Times "One of the best books of 2020. . . . a vivid, propulsive experience. . . . about freedom and our capacity to imagine what it's like to be someone else, or perhaps, more so, what it's like to experience them as they are." -- Goop "A testament to Emezi's immense literary prowess." --Elle "Equal parts heartwarming and emotionally shattering, the life and death of Vivek Oji is truly unforgettable." --Teen Vogue "Emezi has a gift for prose that is often as visceral, tender and heartbreaking as what it describes. . . . While the novel sets out to solve the mystery of Oji's death, what gives it power is how it uncovers the story of a person shielded by the peace of self-acceptance against the pain of the world. Here is proof of what good fiction does best: it is an antidote to invisibility." --The Guardian
"Emezi's tender prose deftly depicts the inner lives of Vivek, Osita and those around them. . . . While the mystery surrounding Vivek's death is finally revealed towards the end of this spellbinding mystery, what proves most satisfying is all that is learnt in the search for truth." --Financial Times "Emezi is a beacon of literary genius... in Emezi's skilled hands, the mosaic of love, pain, community, family, trauma, and beauty, that make the crown to which Vivek is the bloody jewel, is crafted into an unforgettable and deeply moving story." --Lambda Literary.
