The Black Syllabus

“The gods do not care. It is not them, after all, that will pay the cost.”
― Akwaeke Emezi, Freshwater

“I held my breath, but it didn't feel like I was holding my breath, it felt like there should never have been breath. It felt like the entire concept of breath had been something I imagined. After all, my body was never meant to move like this. These lungs had to have been built for show. They should never have expanded and I should never have been alive.”
― Akwaeke Emezi, Freshwater

“Understand this if you understand nothing: it is a powerful thing to be seen”
― Akwaeke Emezi, Freshwater

“This soil is bad for certain kinds of flowers. Certain seeds it will not nurture, certain fruit it will not bear, and when the land kills of its own volition, we acquiesce and say the victim had no right to live. We are wrong, of course, but it doesn't matter. It's too late. At least on the edge of my town, among the garbage and the sunflowers of my town, it's much, much, much too late.”
― Toni Morrison, The Bluest Eye