Grudges, Half-Truths and Divided Selves—Helen Oyeyemi and Her Witty New Novel «A New New Me»

We contain multitudes, or so the saying goes, but what if the different sides of our personalities had trust issues with each other? For Kinga, there’s a different version of herself each day of the week, but with at least three of them playing for Team Toxic, trust is a very hard thing to come by.

Kinga is a woman who is just trying to make it through the week. There’s a Kinga for every day: On Mondays, you can catch Kinga-A deleting food delivery apps. By Friday, Kinga-E is happy to spend the days soaking, wine-drunk, in the bath.

Kingas A–G, perhaps unsurprisingly, live a varied life—between them is a professional matchmaker, a scent-crazed perfumer, and a window cleaner, all with varying degrees of apathy, anger, introversion, and bossiness.

It’s an arrangement that’s not without its fair share of admin, grudges, and half-truths. But when Kinga-A discovers a man tied up in their apartment, the Kingas have to reckon with the possibility that one of them might be planning to destroy them all.

In «A New New Me» Helen Oyeyemi masterfully explores how many versions of oneself one self can safely contain and what happens when they stop playing for the same team.

Moderation: Nora Osagiobare.

Helen Oyeyemi

Helen Oyeyemi’s eleven books include Gingerbread (2019) Parasol Against the Axe (2024) and, most recently, A New New Me. She’s a recipient of the Somerset Maugham Award and PEN’s Open Book Award, and her novel Peaces was shortlisted for the Goldsmiths Prize. Oyeyemi has been a member of the judging panels for the Giller Prize, the Man Booker International Prize, and has reviewed fiction for The New Statesman, the Guardian, and the New York Times. She lives in Prague.
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Nora Osagiobare

Nora Osagiobare wurde 1992 in Zürich geboren. Mit ihrem Debütroman Daily Soap war sie Stipendiatin der Autor:innenwerkstatt Prosa am Literarischen Colloquium Berlin und erhielt einen Werkbeitrag des Kantons Zürich. Für ihre Kurzgeschichte Daughter Issues wurde sie 2025 im Rahmen der 49. Tage der deutschsprachigen Literatur in Klagenfurt mit dem KELAG-Preis ausgezeichnet. Sie ist Co-Präsidentin des Deutschschweizer PEN-Zentrums und lebt in Zürich.
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