Author Pens Novel About the Life of an Intersexed Child in Rural Nigeria

NEW YORK - May 5, 2006 - Oge Creations Books announces June release of its title: The Looming Fog. Written by 24-year- old Nigerian author, the novel is a controversial look at the societal treatment of a child whose sex, at birth, is not immediately obvious.

In The Looming Fog, author Rosemary Esehagu shows us life through the eyes of the abandoned intersexed child who happens to have omniscient sight. Through this insightful child, the life of others and their struggles to fit into, or break free of, the community’s expectations and roles are revealed.

Esehagu derived the inspiration for what now became The Looming Fog from the difficult life that her mother had. Esehagu clarifies, “My mom was poor. Even worse, she was a poor girl, and she had some painful experiences as a result. I wanted to write about her. Even now, a significant portion of The Looming Fog is about the life of women.”

She continues, “However, as I wondered about what the sex of the narrator should be, I remembered the issues raised by the book As nature made him by John Colapinto, which I had learned about in my Psychology class. I instantly knew then that the voice of my story would be someone who blurs the physical line between male and female. This intersexed person became the character and narrator through whom I explored the essence of my mom’s experience. The Looming Fog, in this sense, is not about an intersexed child, a poor girl, or any disadvantaged person; rather, it is about a social environment. I believe that analyzing an environment would lead us to ask questions that would study the benefit or harm of that environment to its members.”

“[The Looming Fog is] a powerful story … a tragic portrayal of how those who comfortably belong are blinded to all the ‘unknowns’ among them,” says Suzanne J. Kessler, author of Lessons from Intersexed and co-author of Gender: An Ethnomethodological Approach. Moreover, to Midwest Book Review, “The Looming Fog is very strongly recommended reading…”

Although set in a rural African village, The Looming Fog is a complex mixture of issues about poverty, noncomformity, and societal validation that subtly reveals the damaging effect of modern-day treatment of intersexuals, the poor, and anyone with a suppressed voice in the community. The book (ISBN: 1933496002) is distributed to the trade by Biblio Distribution Inc.


About the Author:
Rosemary Esehagu is a Nigerian currently residing in Washington, DC. She is an aspiring international doctor, and she has a BA in Psychology from Williams College. The Looming Fog is her debut novel.

About the Publisher:
Oge Creations Books is a new small publisher whose goal is to publish books that promote discussion of topics that deal with the human self and its potentials, motivations, and troubles.

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Valarie Warren

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Oge Creations Books

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