“Freshwater” by Akwaeke Emezi (post 2): Front flap warns, “As Ada fades into the background…alters [alternate personalities]…move into control…dangerous”

Chapter One is narrated by “We,” whose speaker identifies them as spirits sent by Nigerian gods to incarnate and possess a newborn Nigerian baby girl. 

The spirit predicts and claims that the girl, whom it calls “the Ada,” “was going to go mad…She was chubby and beautiful and insane if anyone had known enough to see it” (p. 6).

So, is this is a story about a girl with multiple personality (which is not a psychosis)? Or is the psychological concept of multiple personality to be rejected in favor of Nigerian spiritual beliefs? And is the latter the reason that no psychiatrist, psychologist, or therapist is included among the backcover blurbs or identified in the author’s Acknowledgments?

Let me just mention that it is not unusual for a person with multiple personality to include, among various kinds of alters, spirit alters—alters who see themselves as spirits, angels, or demons—consistent with the person’s culture.

Akwaeke Emezi. Freshwater. New York, Grove Press, 2018.