Akwaeke Emezi is a Nigerian fiction writer and video artist, best known for their novels Freshwater (2018) and Pet and the New York Times bestselling work The Death of Vivek Oji.

[3] Akwaeke Emezi was born in Umuahia, the capital city of Abia State, southeastern Nigeria in 1987 to an Igbo Nigerian father, and a mother who was the daughter of Sri Lankan Tamil immigrants living in Malaysia.

[5] Emezi started reading fantasy books and with their sister Yagazie[6] used storytelling to escape the riots, dictatorship, and dangerous reality of their childhoods.

[3][4] After college, they enrolled in a veterinary school and dropped out before receiving their MPA in international public policy and nonprofit management from New York University.

[4] Emezi's debut novel Freshwater tells the semi-autobiographical story of the protagonist, Ada, who is an ogbanje (an Igbo evil spirit).

Emezi explores their Igbo heritage's spirituality and gender alongside those of Western construction and invites their audience to think critically about this spirit/body binary.

"[21] After the nomination, it was announced that the Women's Prize Trust was working on new guidelines for transgender, non-binary, and genderfluid authors.

[29] In April 2021, Deadline Hollywood announced that Amazon Studios won the right to adapt their debut romance novel You Made a Fool of Death with Your Beauty into a feature film.