The Death of Vivek Oji

Akwaeke Emezi’s novel The Death of Vivek Oji was published by Riverhead Books in 2020 and became an instant New York Times bestseller. The book follows the life and circumstances of death of Vivek Oji, a young Nigerian who experiences debilitating dissociative blackouts that leave him confused about his whereabouts. The book opens with his mother’s discovery of Vivek’s lifeless body on her doorstep and works backwards through multiple narrative threads to track how Vivek died.

The author, like the titular character, is Nigerian Igbo and Tamil and grew up in Nigeria in the 90s amidst political unrest.

Note: There’s a tremendous amount of mystery in the text regarding certain characters’ specific sexual orientations or gender identities; it isn’t clear, for instance, whether Vivek is gender fluid or a trans woman who only rarely has the opportunity to present as herself. This study guide’s use of fluid pronouns for Vivek attempts to preserve the novel’s nuance and ambiguity.

Plot Summary

Vivek is born on the day that his beloved grandmother Ahunna dies, marking his birthday as a source of both joy and grief for his parents Kavita and Chika. Vivek inexplicably has the same scar on his foot that Ahunna did. He is raised alongside his cousin Osita, whose parents are Chika’s brother, Ekene, and Ekene’s increasingly religious wife, Mary. Throughout childhood, only Osita knows about Vivek’s strange blackouts, which culminate in a rift between the boys when Vivek blacks out while secretly watching Osita and his high school girlfriend, Elizabeth, have sex. Elizabeth sees Vivek standing listlessly in the doorway and screams.

Vivek comes home from military school with his hair grown out long, much to the distress of his family, who become divided over how to receive this change. Tension grows between Vivek and Osita when Vivek questions the existence of Osita’s absent girlfriend and Osita struggles with his sexual attraction to Vivek.

On Mary’s advice, Kavita sends Vivek to Mary’s church, where the congregation beats Vivek because they believe a demon is compelling his feminine behavior. Mary defends her congregation, claiming that it was the demon and not Vivek that they were beating. Kavita angrily warns Mary to never again come near Vivek, fracturing this once close family.

Kavita and Chika decide to pull Vivek out of university because they fear he will have a mental health crisis. Kavita invites Vivek’s childhood friends Olunne and Somto, sisters whose mother is a part of Kavita’s community.

After a brief silence, Osita visits Vivek at Juju’s house under the pretense of checking up on him. However, it becomes clear that Osita has come to Vivek seeking to confide after he shared a kiss with a man for the first time. Vivek grows angry at Osita and asks him why he thinks he can seek validation from Vivek after Osita treated him so poorly in the past. Osita kisses Vivek, and the pair have their first sexual encounter. Afterwards, Osita cries in Vivek’s arms.

After Vivek dies, Osita retreats to Port Harcourt, where he engages in drinking and sex with women. He muses that he may not ever have sex with men again after Vivek’s death. Kavita fixates on finding out how Vivek died and endlessly questions Osita and Vivek’s close friends Juju, sisters Somto and Olunne, and Elizabeth. Juju eventually urges the friends to show Kavita some secret photographs of Vivek wearing dresses and make-up. The group goes to Kavita’s house, shows Kavita the photos, and tells her that Vivek had been dressing up, going out, and calling herself Nnemdi, the name Kavita and Chika would have given Vivek if he had been born a girl (named after his grandmother Ahunna). At first, Kavita is angry at Vivek’s friends and insists that Vivek was “sick” and that they took advantage of him. In time, however, Kavita realizes her own failing in not accepting her son for who he really was. She replaces Vivek’s headstone with a new engraving that reads: Vivek Nnemdi Oji, Beloved Son.

At the end of the book, Osita tells the reader about Vivek’s death. On a day that the market burned down and riots broke out, Osita went looking for Vivek to take him back to safety. When Osita found Vivek and called out for him, Vivek refused to answer to anything but the name Nnemdi. Nnemdi and Osita then argued over Osita’s reluctance to make their relationship public. Nnemdi accused Osita of being ashamed of her. The couple quarreled, and Nnemdi accidentally got her heel stuck and fell, hitting her head. Though Osita rushed Nnemdi to the hospital, she died in his arms. Osita then stripped Nnemdi’s body, retrieved the silver Ganesh chain she wore around her neck, then delivered the body to Kavita’s doorstep.

At Vivek/Nnemdi’s gravesite, Osita buries the bloodied dress Nnemdi was wearing at her death, pulls out the silver Ganesh charm, and vows to leave to a place where Osita can wear the charm proudly so “it would feel like he hadn’t left me after all” (273).