Are You Listening? : A Study of Enyinna Nnabuihe’s The Anatomy of a Boy Who Never Became a Man

Are You Listening? : A Study of Enyinna Nnabuihe’s The Anatomy of a Boy Who Never Became a Man

I had the opportunity to read The Anatomy of a Boy Who Never Became a Man in my role as the assistant fiction editor of PHR and was immediately awed. A deeply moving, poetic piece, the story grapples with identity, societal expectations, religion, and transformation while employing an anatomical structure as the narrative frame. I had the pleasure to work with the author, Enyinna Nnabuihe, on a Q&A to add more context to the conversation and pull back the curtain for readers. 

Divine: The piece begins with a quote from the gospel of John and then infuses Christianity and the concept of creation throughout. In what ways does the biblical prose and allusions relate to the trauma and spiritual legacy of the piece? 

Enyinna: Firstly, and quite frankly, I couldn’t have begun this story any other way. 

The Gospel of John is a text deeply concerned with truth, revelation, and the divine becoming visible in the world. It opens with “In the beginning was the Word,” and culminates in this radical idea that “the Word became flesh.” That line, doubling as a promise and a warning, isn’t just about Jesus taking human form—it’s about this divine truth becoming embodied, stepping into skin, into the ache and awe of existence, daring to be seen and, because it is seen, crucified. 

I opened The Anatomy of A Boy Who Never Became a Man with that quote because it frames a spiritual dissonance: Ifesinachi, like Christ, is a figure whose “truth” becomes flesh—her gender, her identity, her desire all insist on being lived, not just hidden in thought. But unlike Christ, her embodiment is not met with respect, but with revulsion: violence, shame, and the rather sharp sting of being misnamed. The biblical language woven through the piece—especially as it passes through the filter of her mother’s fervent religiousness—becomes both sacred and scarring. Her mother, once a vessel of devotion, now weaponizes faith to control and contain her. What begins as grace quickly becomes judgment. 

So Ifesinachi’s journey, like a shaft of light striking the prism that is the Book of John, refracts into something else entirely. The story doesn’t use biblical allusion to affirm religion—it uses it to interrogate the ways faith can be twisted into silence, into shame, and ultimately, into fuel for resistance. This is not a rejection of belief, but a radical coalescence: where pain and scripture, body and spirit, queerness and holiness, converge into something stubborn. And so, we witness Ifesinachi— disrespected through much of the story— reclaim the right to become her own kind of revelation.   

Divine: The spelling bee scene continued to hammer home the importance of language and definition. What is the power of language and naming in this story?  

Enyinna: Before I began writing this story, I understood that much of its weight would rest on language—its rhythm, its precision, its power to wound and to reveal. So, as I wrote, I immersed myself in novels that would sharpen my ear and steady my hand: NoViolet Bulawayo’s Glory, J.M. Coetzee’s Disgrace, Yael van der Wouden’s The Safekeep, to name a few. I knew that language would be the story’s first instrument of definition, and through its deliberate, almost surgical use, I wanted the reader to feel unease—to flinch when Ifesinachi is struck, to stiffen with discomfort as she is misgendered. In this story, language and violence are two sides of the same coin, and along its worn, silvered edges lies the possibility of acceptance. The spelling bee scene is pivotal in this regard: the word “transgender” is spoken before it is fully understood, and in uttering it, “the boy” glimpses himself for the first time. Naming confers both visibility and exposure. The dictionary becomes scripture; the stage, a pulpit. Later, we witness the mother’s refusal to use Ifesinachi’s chosen pronouns, and in that act, identity itself is devalued. Withholding language becomes a quiet cruelty, a denial of existence. Language, then, is sanctified yet secular—capable of building and breaking, liberating and limiting in equal measure. 

Divine: Shifting to setting and how that factors into identity, the section “Origin” starts with the line, “The boy, unlike most of us, beat himself up, wondering where he came from.” The emphasis on where highlights the social and political forces of Awka and Nigeria and how they factor into the character’s journey. Can you speak more about how Nigerian culture shaped Ifesinachi’s inner and outer journey? 

Enyinna: Ifesinachi, like me, is Igbo before anything else. She was born in Awka, Anambra State, and raised there. And while writing this story, I was in a federal university in the state, earning my degree. Anambra stands apart from other Nigerian states, and Awka—its capital—is its bustling nucleus of hustle and excellence. There are nearly as many stalls and kiosks as there are residential houses, if not more. And where there are no kiosks, someone will plant an umbrella in the ground, set up a POS machine, and start selling cold drinks from a cooler. Just like that, the emergence of a new business. There’s the infamous flyover, where you must tread with utmost caution, clutching your bag like a second skin—day or night, as it could vanish in an instant. Tricycles crowd the roads leading up to the cluttered Eke Awka market, and if it’s not the stench of sewage and spoiled produce invading your nostrils, it’s the sharp cries of traders—speaking in fast, fluid Igbo—or the rickety buses parked in place, their loudspeakers blaring miracle-cure sermons. First, they rattle off symptoms in the form of questions, making you wonder if you’ve felt them before. Then they promise that their herbal liquid can cure syphilis, gonorrhoea, HIV, scabies, chlamydia, rabies, and every other ailment they’ve just convinced you you might have. 

Now, it may seem like I’ve rambled here, but this chaos—this pulse—is what shapes Ifesinachi. Awka is not just a backdrop. It is a living, breathing character. It is home. And no matter how corrupt, chaotic, or burdened by tradition and expectation it may be—even in the face of Ifesinachi’s gendered struggle, even amid the crushing socio-political pressures Nigeria places on those who live outside its norms—it remains home. In this story, home is the source of love, of discipline, and of damnation. And so, the culture of Awka, and of Nigeria at large, becomes the forge of her resilience—and the root of her exile. 

Divine: Ifesinachi reflects that she and her friends knew that leaving Nigeria would make their lives relatively easier. 

“There were days where they discussed how hard finding love was for them in this part of the world, and others where, from bingeing Pose, they delved into socio-cultural commentary that tugged at their heartstrings until the tears just fell. Each of them knowing that, in leaving Nigeria, their lives would relatively get easier.” 

This brings up so many interesting questions. Can you discuss the factors in their decisions to stay?   

Enyinna:  I can’t, in good faith, sit here and list the exact reasons that shaped their decision to stay in Nigeria—even while knowing that leaving would have made their lives easier. But what I do know is this: as of 2025, Nigeria continues to witness a staggering net emigration trend. Doctors, pharmacists, academics, engineers—writers, too—are leaving in droves. Emigration offers escape from economic hardship, plunges you into a wonderland of opportunity. And while Ifesinachi’s reasons are more social than economic, her choice reflects a deep entanglement: attachment and fear braided tightly together. It raises an aching question—does one build a life on the margins of home, or seek freedom as a stranger abroad? 

Everyone who has left—or is thinking of leaving—has wrestled with this. They’ve weighed their options, calculated the cost, and chosen. But even after departure, the pull of home lingers. It hums in the air like memory: the smoky aroma of Ofe Aku wafting from bukas made of wood, the crisp sizzle of akara dancing in hot oil, the early-morning chant of “okpa di oku!” echoing from house to house, sung by the fair Igbo woman everyone knows has six unruly children who won’t let her rest. And sometimes, it’s simply the neighbourly tenderness—strangers offering, from some deep, unwritten code, unsolicited care.

To leave is to escape. But to stay—despite the chaos—is to bear witness to the stubborn, soul-deep ache of belonging. And sometimes, that ache, stupid as it may sound, is the only thing that feels like home.  

Divine: How does the intersection of queerness, religion, and Nigerian culture shape their struggle, and how would race factor in if they left?  

Enyinna: So, I’ll call it what it is: a collision, a clashing—this uneasy association between queerness and religion in Nigeria. Religion shapes public opinion, especially here, where churches spring up like goosebumps at the faintest whisper of a “calling.” Nigerian culture, in turn, enforces strict gender binaries and a rigid devotion to heteronormativity. In that sense, leaving—like I said earlier—offers a kind of escape, a breath of freedom. 

But then, race enters the room when you japa abroad. In Nigeria, she isn’t marked as Black—she is simply “the boy who never became a man.” But elsewhere, she is quickly reduced to a label: a Black transgender woman, constantly at risk of being exoticized, othered, misunderstood. 

Everything has its trade-offs, las las. 

Divine: Zooming out, the story’s narrative frame is built around the use of anatomical/medical structure as a narrative frame. How does that clash with or complement the fluidity of gender, memory, and selfhood?  

Enyinna: In my second year at university, I was introduced to clinical anatomy. My sister, an anatomist, kindled my love for the course. Ahead of the exam, we had to study various parts of the body—the glenohumeral joint, the breasts, the femoral triangle, the heart—and to do so properly, everything had to follow a strict structure. From Definition to Clinical Anatomy. Especially in the exams. 

That structure, right alongside the early stirrings of this story, lingered in my mind, hanging over me like a cloud. I don’t know what it feels like to be trans. I still don’t. But I wanted—at the very least—to understand. And so, I leaned into the idea of dissection: of stepping outside the body and observing, carefully, tenderly. The narrator becomes a witness—outside, looking in—not always understanding why, and maybe not needing to, but fully present in everything Ifesinachi feels. In subtle ways, framing the story like an anatomy textbook mirrors the process of dissection itself—a clinical, sometimes cold method of breaking down the body, which stands in sharp contrast to the fluid, lived experience of Ifesinachi’s gender and memory. 

Yet, that same structure becomes a source of power. It gives her a way to take ownership—to name her bruises, her joys, her transformations. The irony is deliberate: the same system that has historically pathologized her—the medical gaze, anatomy itself—becomes the very lens through which she reclaims her story. And to be honest, I didn’t fully realize that I’d unconsciously done this, until I’d finished writing the piece. 

Divine: The story features shifts in pronouns as the character’s identity shifts. How do these shifts reflect identity, transformation, and the complexity of the narrator’s gendered experience? 

Enyinna: This was the greatest worry I had with the story, the pronoun shifts. It made me uncomfortable—deeply troubled me—so I leaned into that discomfort, letting it guide me through the writing. The pronouns used in the piece reflect mostly how others perceive Ifesinachi’s gender, rather than aligning with her internal truth. It dramatizes the dysphoria and misrecognition she endures, forcing the reader to see her as “boy”—not because that’s who she is, but because that’s who the world insists she must be. And then, slowly, it begins to shift. It traces gender not as a fixed fact but as a painful, gradual, and deeply personal journey. The reader is made to feel the transition: from confusion to clarity, from erasure to embodiment. “Diagram” is the turning point—it marks the physical transformation, yes, but it’s only a bridge. The real shift begins in “Blood Supply,” where Ifesinachi starts to push back—against the weight of family, religion, and society. In this way, gender in the story is laid bare—not as biology, not as destiny, but as something more fragile, more complex: a bruised, breathing, becoming thing. I guess that’s what I was reaching for. 

Divine: The portrayal of queer and trans desire in this piece allows for sensuality and pleasure beyond pain. Why was it important to include eroticism in the narrative, and how does it challenge common portrayals of trans bodies? 

Enyinna: There were certain elements that absolutely needed to be included. Eroticism, for sure. Including it allowed the narrative to reclaim pleasure from pain and shame. True, the world— and literature, too— has long been saturated with uncomfortable, often dehumanizing portrayals of trans bodies. But there have also been stories as devastating as they are tender—works that resist the tired trope of queer suffering as spectacle. Take Chidera Solomon Anikpe’s A Eulogy for Happy Girls. That story is told through a lens of intimacy and reverence, not pity. Even though the trans character, Iréoluwa, is ultimately killed, the narrative isn’t about her death—not in the slightest. It’s about the life she lived, the force she embodied, the beauty she carried with defiant grace. That’s why it was important for me to let Ifesinachi actively reshape her own life—to confront her mother, to choose love, to move to Lagos, to undergo medical transitioning. Her voice—her rage, her self-definition, her becoming—was always paramount. In her story, Ifesinachi is granted erotic agency rather than reduced to an object. Her body is sacred, not scandalous. And the love she receives from Sahad is not conditional, voyeuristic, or salvific—it is affirming, patient, and profoundly healing. 

Divine: I would like to shift gears and talk about your own journey. Can you speak on how the act of writing this piece could be a form of reclamation? 

Enyinna: When I talk about writing The Anatomy of a Boy Who Never Became a Man, I can’t ignore the fact that I spent two years crafting it—three, if you count the time I spent simply thinking about it, turning the story over in my head, again and again. And all through that period, the headlines were relentless: the police extorting and brutalizing LGBTQ+ people, mass arrests at so-called “gay events,” the threat of prosecution after queer Nigerians dared to appear in a viral video, the public beating of a gay couple in Port Harcourt, and the brutal murder of the transgender TikToker known as Abuja Area Mama. These events, tragic as they were, eventually became what all disheartening news tends to become: headlines. Stories that haunt us, but rarely inspire change. And like so many others before them—like the abduction of the Chibok girls, like the #EndSARS protests—no matter how often we honour the victims, no matter how frequently we hold memorials, people forget. It’s unfortunate, but inevitable.  

And so, in Nigeria, where crises bloom by the hour and queerness is met with derision, shame becomes, like muscle memory, second nature. You sit among people who see the world through a narrow, rigid lens, and if you are different, your voice gets aggressively strangled, silenced. So writing this story became a sacrament of some sorts. A confession. A defiance. A way to stand tall against all the noise and cruelty and ignorance. And in doing all of that, I found my voice, and freed myself. 

Divine: Finally, what mindset or reflection do you hope readers carry with them after finishing the story? 

Enyinna: It’s wild that you ask this, because while some writers write simply to recount events or process emotions, I write to impose my thoughts on readers. No, it’s not coercion or combat. As Joan Didion once said, writing is, in many ways, the act of saying I—of asserting oneself onto the world, of saying: listen to me, see it my way, change your mind. 

And so, I do just that. 

Are you listening? 

Do you feel a little less alone? 

Do you understand what I’ve felt, what I’m still feeling? 

And after all that—has your mind, even in some small way, been changed? 

Because as humans, we wield enormous power in shaping—or dismantling—each other’s sense of self. With this story, I ask readers to reckon with that responsibility. To reflect on their words, their silences, their assumptions. To imagine a world where queer and trans people are seen fully—not just in the context of tragedy, not just through the lens of survival, but in the fullness of their joy, complexity, and truth. 

I want them to question. To expand their capacity for love. To defend the right of every person to name themselves, define themselves, and be seen as whole.