Who is the author of the memoir, Aftershocks?

Nadia Owusu is the author and first person narrator of Aftershocks. She was born to Osei and Almas in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. As the biracial daughter of a Ghanaian father and an Armenian mother, Nadia found herself struggling with a dislocated sense of identity from a young age. When she was very little, her mother left the family, and returned to Massachusetts, where she was born. Nadia's father remarried a woman named Anabel shortly thereafter. Without her mother, Nadia began relying on her father for a sense of balance from a young age. Over the years, however, Osei's job with the UN forced the family to relocate repeatedly. Their constant moves further upset her sense of home and family.

When she was just 13 years old, her father died after battling cancer for several years. In the wake of his death, Nadia felt homeless and lost. Her already-tenuous relationship with her stepmother worsened. Nadia began rebelling as much as she could. Finally, when she was 18, she moved to New York, New York to attend Pace University. Almost as soon as she arrived, however, Nadia felt anxious and overwhelmed. Her new American life did not offer her the safety and security for which she had longed.

When Nadia was 28, Anabel visited the city. During dinner, she told Nadia her father had really died of AIDS. Though Nadia called Anabel a liar, she considered the possible truth of her revelation. If her father had had AIDS, he might not have been the man she thought he was. In the days and weeks following, Nadia descended into a depressive low. She found a blue chair on the street that reminded her of her father, and decided she would not move from it. During her time in the blue chair, Nadia began considering the ways in which her familial, ethnic, and cultural histories had shaped who she was. The more she remembered, the more she had to confront in herself. By the end of the memoir, she makes peace with her identity, and finds healing in writing her story.