March 1, 2021, 1:23pm
Akwaeke Emezi (Freshwater, Pet, The Death of Vivek Oji) is making their romance debut with You Made a Fool of Death With Your Beauty. The novel, which will be published in 2022 by Atria, centers on “a young artist struggling to overcome the loss of an old love, while inviting a new one in.”
The prolific author, who has published six books across five genres in the past four years, credited the novel’s title to “Hunger” by Florence + The Machine.
In a series of tweets announcing the book deal, Emezi said, “I started the romance novel in 2019, which was one of the worst years of my life, and listening to [Florence + The Machine] stitched me together when my spirit was pulling itself apart. I am so grateful for their work and the way it carved me down to the bone.”
In the song’s post-chorus, singer, songwriter and frontwoman Florence Welch sings:
And it’s Friday night and it’s kicking in
In that pink dress, they’re gonna crucify me
Oh and you in all your vibrant youth
How could anything bad ever happen to you?
You make a fool of death with your beauty
Emezi, who was a 2018 National Book Foundation “5 Under 35″ honoree, also has a forthcoming memoir, Dear Senthuran: A Black Spirit Memoir. The memoir, which seems to be a series of letters, “traces the unfolding of a self and the unforgettable journey of a creative spirit stepping into power in the human world.”
Dear Senthruan will be available from Riverhead on June 8, 2021, and can be preordered now.
Can’t get enough of Emezi? You Made a Fool of Death With Your Beauty isn’t the only work that they will publish in 2022. The author announced in December 2020 that they are publishing a poetry collection from Copper Canyon Press.