New York Times bestselling author and artist Akwaeke Emezi has signed with Verve.
Emezi’s first novel Freshwater is currently in development to be adapted as an FX series with Emezi writing and executive producing alongside Verve client Tamara P. Carter (P-Valley, The Leftovers).
Published in 2018, the novel won the 2019 Otherwise Award (formerly the Tiptree) and the Nommo Award. Freshwater was also shortlisted for the Center for Fiction’s First Novel Prize, the PEN/Hemingway Award, the NYPL Young Lions Fiction Award, the Edmund White Award for Debut Fiction, and a Lambda Literary Award.
Emezi’s bestselling sophomore adult novel The Death of Vivek Oji was published last year from Riverhead Books as part of lucrative two-book deal with the publisher.
Recognized as a National Book Foundation’s “5 Under 35” honoree in 2018, Emezi has a slate of books set to release including a nonfiction debut from Riverhead Books, Dear Senthuran (A Black Spirit Memoir), on June 8, 2021, a debut poetry collection Content Warning: Everything (Copper Canyon Press) in 2022 and a romance debut You Made a Fool of Death With Your Beauty (Atria Books) in 2022.
Emezi’s young adult novel, PET, was also a finalist for a National Book Award for Young People’s Literature and a Lambda Literary Award in 2019.
Emezi is repped by Jacqueline Ko (The Wylie Agency).
