ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

It was such a joy to jump back into this world with these characters, with all the spirits and creatures, this mystical part of Nigeria. Once I started writing Akata Woman, the story flowed like a river that knows it’s also a road.

I’d like to thank my daughter, Anyaugo, for the title of this book, Akata Woman. Thank you to Taofik Yusuf for his insight into the deeper meaning of the Danafojura masquerade. Thanks to Igbo language expert Yvonne Chiọma Mbanefo for her help with the Igbo. I’d like to thank my editor Jenny Bak for her excellent insight. Thanks to the artist wizard known as Greg Ruth for yet another epic rendering of Sunny. Greg and I talk in-depth before each book cover illustration, so the results you see truly carry the essence of the character. Many thanks to my cat Periwinkle Chukwu for keeping me while I was writing this and also making sure I constantly felt like something creepy was in the room with us (cats truly do see things we humans cannot).

Lastly, I’d like to thank the terrible, no good, very bad virus known as COVID-19. Without all the wahala it caused, without the world going on lockdown, I would not have finished this novel this soon. Working on Akata Woman helped me through those scary months of 2020; I got to travel with Sunny, Chichi, Sasha, and Orlu into worlds within worlds when the world wasn’t able to go anywhere.