Pemi Aguda

'Pemi Aguda is a Nigerian writer known for her short stories and debut collection Ghostroots. Her work often explores complex themes surrounding motherhood, identity, and the supernatural. Ghostroots, which includes previously published stories such as "Breastmilk" and "The Hollow", was a finalist for the 2024 National Book Award for Fiction and received critical acclaim for its unifying themes and narrative cohesion. She holds an MFA in fiction from the University of Michigan's Helen Zell Writers' Program, where she won a Henfield Prize, a Tyson Prize, and several Hopwood Awards.

A graduate of the 2019 Clarion Workshop, Aguda's work was supported by an Octavia E. Butler Memorial Scholarship. She also received a scholarship from the Juniper Summer Workshop (where she is now a faculty member in fiction) and an Aspen Words Emerging Writer Fellowship in 2020. She was a 2021 Miami Book Fair Fiction Fellow, a 2022 MacDowell Fellow in Literature, and a 2023 James Merrill House Writer in Residence.

Career Aguda is known for short stories that often deal with the complexities of balancing motherhood (or fatherhood) between valor and oppression. The stories are wrapped in supernatural scenarios of literal hauntings or otherwise feature characters having haunting concerns that consume them, and each is normally connected in some way to the discussion of motherhood or womanhood as "a haunting and an inheritance". There is a sense, amidst the magic, that mothers are doomed to fail. The world is full of dangers, and a mother can either smother or leave, and neither will do. Daughters can escape or stay, but the world very well might blame them either way. — Leah Rachel von Essen, Chicago Review of Books, on the short stories of Ghostroots

In a discussion with Marris Adikwu on Interview, Aguda explained her ethos on and interpretation of storytelling as a type of expression of what haunts people, saying "almost every story could be read as a haunted story. As much as we're haunted by ghosts or our ancestors or evil, we're haunted by memory, too. We are haunted by repressed emotions [or] by the decisions that we don't make." The recurring themes of literal and figurative haunting throughout her works culminated in the release of a debut short story collection.

In May 2024, W. W. Norton published this debut short story collection, Ghostroots. The unifying themes of these short stories helped to establish cohesion. Critics by and large viewed it as a strong short story collection and debut, though they were split on reception to some of the stories, such as "Birdwoman". It was also listed on the New York Times 100 Notable Books of 2024.

She is currently the Hortense Spillers Assistant Editor at Transition Magazine.

Aguda's debut novel, One Leg on Earth, was published on May 5, 2026 from W. W. Norton & Company. The novel was listed as one of Literary Hub and TIME Magazine's "Most Anticipated Books of 2026." It is one of Esquire's "The Best Books of 2026." Awards YearTitleAwardCategoryResult2015"Caterer, Caterer"Writivism Short Story PrizeShort Fiction 2020The Suicide Mothers early draftDeborah Rogers Foundation Award— 2022"Breastmilk"O. Henry Award— "Masquerade Season"Nommo AwardShort Story 2023"The Hollow"O. Henry Award— 2024"Breastmilk"Caine Prize— GhostrootsLos Angeles Times Book PrizeArt Seidenbaum Award National Book AwardFiction Young Lions Fiction Award—

Works Books

Anthologies