I don’t pay a lot of attention to literary awards for the most part, but the one exception that I regularly make is what used to be called the Tiptree Award and is now the Otherwise Award, the tagline for which is “an award encouraging the exploration & expansion of gender.” I picked this book up because it is the most recent winner. And it is so, so good. It is the story of a girl in a Nigerian family who is born with beings from the other side, offspring of gods, within her. She faces terrible trauma over her life, and in response some among those beings move to take a larger role in running the body that they all share. Written very clearly to suggest that an outside observer could easily read these experiences into various medical diagnostic categories. A rather bleak story in a lot of ways, filled as it is with so much harm and misery, but it manages to have…maybe intensity without offputting heaviness captures what I mean? Something like that. And the writing is really wonderful. |
Originally posted by Scott on Goodreads.