Nadia Owusu Selected Works

Nadia Owusu grew up all over the world—from Rome and London to Dar-es-Salaam and Kampala. After her mother left when she was two and her father’s passing when she was thirteen, she was raised by her stepmother but struggled to come to terms with who she was. Aftershocks follows Nadia as she hauls herself out of turmoil and begins to write her own ground to stand on.

In Nadia Owusu’s So Devilish a Fire, we experience Nadia’s coming-of-age story, in which she absorbs the split narrative that has defined her life: Born in Tanzania’s Ngorongoro Crater to a White mother and Black father, motherhood curved into a complete question. She tells us of the two people pressed just under her flesh, the pressures to be lighter and whiter. We learn alongside her how whiteness represents a safety she can never fully attain. This chapbook offers the complexity of learning self-love while showing us exactly what her survival looks like.