When Esinam Bediako submitted the manuscript for her debut novel, “Blood on the Brain,” for consideration for the Ann Petry Award, she didn’t think she’d be in the running for the top prize.
The prize, founded in 2020 by Pasadena-based Red Hen Press and the Peauxdunque Writers Alliance, awards $3,000 to a work of fiction by a Black author. Bediako, whose work was judged by author Deesha Philyaw, did win. The award also comes with another perk: publication of the book by Red Hen.
“I wasn’t really thinking I was going to win it,” Bediako says. “I was just trying to get myself back out there by telling myself, ‘If I set a deadline and submit my work to something, I’m going to get in the habit of doing that.’”
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“Blood on the Brain,” which Red Hen published in September, follows Akosua, a 24-year-old Ghanaian American graduate student in New York who is having a rough year. Her relationship with her boyfriend, Wisdom, has come to an end, and her feelings for another man, Daniel, are unreciprocated. She has also recently learned that her absent father has moved from Ghana to the U.S., bringing up a past she would rather forget.
Making matters much worse: Akosua slips in the shower, hitting her head, causing a concussion, throwing her life into further disarray. But it also causes her to question her life choices, inspiring her to make drastic changes.
Bediako discussed her novel via telephone from her home in Claremont. This conversation has been condensed and edited for length and clarity.
Q: How did the character of Akosua come to you initially?
I started this book when I was in grad school for my MFA, probably 17 years ago. I was in my early twenties just like Akosua at that time, and I was less mature of a writer, so I was writing characters that were basically just like me. They didn’t really have too many conflicts; they’re just observing the conflicts. In my second year of grad school, I thought, “I’m going to just write this character who, yes, we have a lot of demographics in common, but she’s just a lot more bold and impulsive.” She was like my alter ego in a way. It was really fun to write from that perspective.
Q: That had to have been cathartic.
It definitely was. I started that book almost 20 years ago, and then came back to it a couple of years later. It was interesting to revisit that character. I still don’t think I’m very much like her, but at least I now have a little bit more perspective to see how I do have some of those thoughts and inclinations that she does, but just am a little bit better. For better or worse, I can take a step back and think before I act. But it was interesting to see now that I’m older, some of the ways in which I thought, “Oh, you know what? Maybe I was judging her too harshly and she’s doing the best she can.”
Q: The twist in this book is that she sustains this horrible head injury, and in a way, it ends up making her more herself. What made you want to take this story in that direction?
In my first draft, she just hit her head because I thought of it as a way to introduce Ella and Wisdom, these two important characters. I just was like, “Oh, something bad has to happen to her that they both come in at the same time.” But then the more I thought about it, I realized that would be a pretty bad injury. I just started thinking more about what happens when you hit your head. I am always interested in what motivates people to do the things that they do, and I tend to think about that in terms of what past traumas or experiences influence the way you act.
It was interesting to me to research what happens if you have a brain injury and how it could affect your personality. I thought it was really an interesting way to explore her personality and her actions and how she reacts to the things that are going on. I do think it’s kind of strange how it seems like the injury helps her to be and say and do the things that she wanted to do, but I also think it’s kind of nebulous whether or not she was always this way. Was this always in there, or is she just concussed? And after the book ends, a few days after the book is over, would there be this chapter where she’s like, “Oh, no, what have I done?” I don’t know.
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Q: Akosua is really affected by Wisdom telling her she’s not Ghanaian enough. Why do you think that that is so hurtful to her?
I had some scenes that I did not include where she was describing how much value she placed in the fact that her first love is this Ghanaian man. I took those scenes out cause I thought they were a little bit too obvious, but what I basically was hoping would come across in the book is that she, for better or worse, kind of can’t help but think about Wisdom as she’s thinking about her father, and the question of, “Am I good enough for you as a daughter?” morphs into this question of, “Am I good enough for you as a partner?” Whether she means to or not, she’s conflating these two issues of what value she has to these two Ghanaian men, and to get that kind of feeling from Wisdom is a blow to who she is. It doesn’t matter if her mom or her friend Ella say that she’s fine the way she is, but if this man is rejecting her, then it just is too painful.
Q: Do you think that’s part of why she pursues Daniel, to get that kind of acceptance?
I do think so. She gets really excited when he says, “You are both an American and a Ghanaian. You are more complex than I considered.” She is excited about that, even though it’s a very surface comment that he made. She still doesn’t really know him that well, but it’s almost like she was looking for a Wisdom replacement in him and someone to validate her Ghanaian identity.
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