Nadia Owusu’s ‘Aftershocks’ is a moving tale of identity, loss and finding home Marion Winik Nadia Owusu has a complicated background. “Although I identify as Black,” she writes in her memoir “Aftershocks,” “I am more literally Caucasian than most people who call themselves Caucasian. My mother is ethnically Armenian, and Armenians are from the Caucasus region between Europe and Asia.” Owusu’s mother was born in Watertown, Mass. Her father belonged to the Ashanti tribe of southern Ghana. Owusu was born in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and moved back and forth between England, Italy and East Africa. At 18 she came to New York City for college and has lived there ever since.