Terminal Maladies

Tender poetry chronicling a son’s relationship with his mother through her battle with cancer and his move from his homeland of Nigeria to the United States.

Winner of the 2023 CAAPP Book Prize from the University of Pittsburgh’s Center for African American Poetry and Poetics and Autumn House Press, Okwudili Nebeolisa’s debut poetry collection serves as an intimate exploration of the relationship between a Nigerian mother and son. Throughout the book, Nebeolisa navigates the guilt of starting a new life in the United States, far away from his home country and from his mother, who is battling cancer.

Depicting tender moments between mother and son, Terminal Maladies highlights how the poet and his family shoulder the responsibility of caregiving together and how Nebeolisa works to bridge the physical and emotional distance between them. He reflects on the reasons behind his Nigerian mother’s withholding, questioning her need to act bravely alongside his own assumed role as her protector.

Okwudili Nebeolisa was born in Kaduna, Nigeria, and currently lives in Iowa City. He is a graduate of the Iowa Writers Workshop where he was a Provost Fellow and won the Prairie Lights John Leggetts Prize for Fiction. He has received support for his poetry from the Elizabeth George Foundation and the Granum Foundation. His poems have appeared in Beloit Poetry Journal, Cincinnati Review, Image, Salamander Magazine, Sewanee Review, and Threepenny Review, and his nonfiction has appeared in Catapult and Commonwealth Writers.