No God Like the Mother

Kesha Ajose-Fisher was born in Chicago, raised in Lagos, Nigeria, and returned to the United States with her family in the early nineties. She won the 2020 Ken Kesey Prize through the Oregon Book Awards for her debut collection: No God Like the Mother. She is also an Oregon Literary Fellow and a relentless student of the human condition. Ajose-Fisher’s work has appeared in collections such as The Alchemy, The Phoenix, The Buckman Journal, and was recently anthologized in Dispatches from Anarres: Tales in Tribute to Ursula K. Le Guin.

"No God Like the Mother is the sort of story collection that comes along very rarely--honest, precise, and meticulous in its emotional and physical detail. These globe-spanning stories--so often set at the intersection of nurture and abandonment, of intimacy and great emptying distance--are each a pristine act of storytelling, an immersion. Kesha Ajọsẹ-Fisher is a brilliant new talent, and No God Like the Mother the beginning of an equally brilliant literary career."  –Omar El Akkad, author of American War “Kesha Ajọsẹ Fisher is a talented new writer who debuts with this impressive short story collection that will touch your soul with stories that are both tender and heartbreaking.” –Heidi W. Durrow, New York Times-bestselling author of The Girl Who Fell From the Sky"No God Like the Mother is the kind of book my soul craves--these stories are gorgeously rendered, poetic and sure handed, but more than Fisher's abundant talent, there lies on each page the thing that can never be invented or taught, and it is simply this: absolute heart. With a seer's eye, Fisher examines themes of motherhood from angles that feel in equal measure compelling, startling, and downright beautiful." –Chelsea Bieker, author of Godshot