Aftershocks by Nadia Owusu

The last time I read a book to the amplified sound of my heartbeat was Elif Shafak’s The Bastard of Istanbul over a decade ago. Nadia Owusu’s memoir, Aftershocks, delivers a similar poignant punch, a staggering uneasiness to the untamable beat of the racing heart. Whiting Award-winning writer Nadia Owusu shares with the reader her nomadic childhood and early adulthood, as the daughter of an Armenian mother and Ghanaian father who worked at the U.N.

She offers the reader the vulnerability of memory on a 300-page platter. Like Picasso’s blue period, best writers are those who can provide panoramic images in the abstract peculiarity of pain and grief. Booklist calls Aftershocks a “stunning, visceral book about the ways that our stories – of loss, of love, of borders – leave permanent marks on our bodies and minds.” 

— Shahe Mankerian

Listen to Owusu’s interview with NPR’s Scott Simon here.

Read a review in the New York Times here.

Read a review in The Guardian here. 

Read a review in the Washington Post here.

Buy the book at your local bookstore through Indiebound.