Theresa Okokon, author of WHO I ALWAYS WAS- an in-person Boswell event

Boswell Book Company presents an evening with Theresa Okokon, who visits with her new memoir in essays Who I Always Was, a book that chronicles the challenges of coming-of-age as the child of African parents in suburban Wisconsin and a mystery surrounding her father's death in Nigeria.

from Boswell. Signed copies are available on most event preorders. If you have a personalization request, enter it in "order comments" at checkout. Please note: signed copies will ship AFTER the event. Remember to select “In Store Pickup” at check out to avoid unnecessary shipping fees on books you intend to pick up at the event.

When Theresa Okokon was nine, her father traveled to his hometown in Nigeria to attend his mother’s funeral and never returned. His death shattered Okokon as her family’s world unraveled. In her debut memoir, Okokon sets out to explore the ripple effects of that profound loss and the way heartache shapes our sense of self and of the world for the rest of our lives.

"Who I Always Was is a coming-of-age memoir, where the narrator struggles to find her place in a new land, a place that also happens to be where she was born. A central wound haunts these pages, that of a father who returns to his homeland and never returns. This is an immigrant memoir that asks the deepest questions of identity, of home, of belonging" —Nick Flynn, author of Another Bullshit Night in Suck City

Theresa Okokon is an award-winning writer, storyteller, and teacher, and her work has appeared in Elle, midnight & indigo, Hippocampus Magazine, and other outlets.

Host or Publisher Boswell Book Company