When someone talks about “feeling all the feels,” they very well could be referring to any of the books penned by one of the literary world’s most original authors, Akwaeke Emezi. They have written New York Times bestsellers, was a finalist for the National Book Award for Young People’s Literature, was shortlisted for a PEN/Hemingway Award, and won the Stonewall Prize in the Nonfiction category. Naturally, their characters follow their remarkable real-life story --- trans, a visionary, a writer who strives to communicate their own world to readers with a sharp-eyed focus.

Now, Emezi goes even further with a brutal look at the sexual longings and deviations of the twenty- and thirty-somethings of Nigeria in LITTLE ROT, which offers a peek into an underworld of deviance and desire that is remarkable and horrific at the same time.

"LITTLE ROT is a difficult but powerful story about a group of young people making decisions about how they wish to live in a world complicated by money, desire and loss."

The book begins with a breakup. Aima wants to marry her boyfriend of five years, Kalu, but realizes there is no hope of a future with him. So she leaves him. Instead of flying to the States, which was her original intent, she asks her best friend to pick her up at the airport. Aima will be staying at Ijendu’s place for the time being as she sorts through her feelings. Ijendu invites her on a girls’ night out in New Lagos, where they will party, drink, dance and get high on pills. Aima appreciates the gesture but has mixed feelings about losing herself in this kind of abandon.

Meanwhile, Kalu doesn’t realize that Aima is still in the country and agrees to hit up his friend Ahmed’s raucous gathering that night. But when he happens upon a party that seems to be catering to pedophiles, he’s disgusted. He fights Ahmed and is tossed into a frightening, corrupt and capitalist nightmare the likes of which he has never seen. And, of course, the two protagonists continue to yearn for and love each other, no matter how much distance is between them.

Aima, Kalu, Ahmed and two sex workers end up in a tawdry and flammable situation as they travel through a world where everything is available and ready to help you lose yourself to heady distractions. However, the underworld becomes a dark, life-threatening pit. As they are sucked deeper and deeper into its dangerous underpinnings, each character is forced to reckon with his or her own desire to stay alive and in what fashion.

LITTLE ROT is actually a book about big rot --- capitalism, sex and hedonism wrapping themselves into a throuple and making a big noise that the world-at-large isn’t ready to hear. It’s about taking responsibility for both your pain and your gain, and how you can do that in order to improve your life or deny it. Emezi doesn’t try to moralize about their endeavors or make their characters out to be anything they are not. They are human and fallible, in pain and figuring things out, but the forces they are up against may turn out to be too much for them in the end.

There is always a keen spiritual perception at the heart of Emezi’s work, and their latest is no exception. Although the parameters of the characters’ searches may be tinged with terror, there is still the sense that they will bring evil to light and find a way to move forward with clarity and real compassion for themselves and others. LITTLE ROT is a difficult but powerful story about a group of young people making decisions about how they wish to live in a world complicated by money, desire and loss.