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“Essayist Okokon debuts with a tender exploration of how her Midwestern childhood and the death of her father have shaped her…While the narrative is rooted in loss, Okokon avoids excessive gloom by charting her personal growth: she writes of how she learned, in adulthood, to celebrate her mother’s unwavering support after her father’s death, and draws on the Ghanaian concept of “sankofa” (meaning “go back and fetch it”) to reckon with her past. “I am responsible for living the life I want to live, and for living it on and with purpose,” Okokon writes, and it lands not as a cliché but as a hard-won insight.”

– Publishers Weekly

Who I Always Was

Written by Theresa Okokon
Published by Atria Books

When Theresa Okokon was nine, her father traveled to his hometown in Nigeria to attend his mother’s funeral…and never returned. His mysterious death shattered Theresa as her family’s world unraveled. Now a storyteller and television cohost, Okokon sets out to explore the ripple effects of that profound loss and the way heartache shapes our sense of self and of the world—for the rest of our lives.

Using her grief and her father’s death as a backdrop, Okokon delves deeply into intrinsic themes of Blackness, African spirituality, family, abandonment, belonging, and the seemingly endless, unrequited romantic pursuits of a Black woman who came of age as a Black girl in Wisconsin suburbs where she was—in many ways—always an anomaly.

Primary ISBN: 9781668008959
Publication Date: February 2025
Available As: Hardcover, Paperback, Audiobook, eBook
Memoir, Age 18 or older

Community Represented: ,

Themes: , , , , , , , , ,

Setting: United States (Wisconsin)

Character's Place in the Immigration Journey: 1st Generation

Book Creator(s) Connection to the Community Represented: Own Voices/Lived Experience

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