Nnedi's Wahala Zone Blog

Nnedi's Book of the Year: Habibi by Craig Thompson

2011-12-20T10:53:00.003-06:00

I read a LOT. I read as much as I write. I try to keep track on my Goodreads page but I don't list everything I read there (sometimes I forget to include books). Nevertheless, I don't normally do "Best Of" lists. I know so many writers...it just feels uncomfortable for me. But this year, I'd like to share my BEST read of the year because it was so so good...

I can’t recommend this graphic novel enough. It is a testament to the fact that the physical book should never die. It's a gorgeous work of art, both physically and narrative-ly. Habibi by Craig Thompson is whirling with Arabic calligraphy, bleeding pages and detailed imagery that is both Arab and African, ancient and modern, playful and serious. And equally as exquisite, compelling and daring is the book’s story which follows the lives of two slaves, one African and one Arab and how the world shapes, destroys, and evolves them. Note: This novel deals with some very adult material. It is not for children. Don't leave it lying around for a child to pick up and open.

He drew her right in front of me :-D!!

This is my signed sample copy of Habibi from when I met Craig at Comic-con. I didn't know it was him when I met him. I just saw art that looked in the same style as Thompson's previous novel Blankets and my curiosity was piqued. So I approached the booth. There I was, talking to him about Blankets and how excited I was about Habibi (he was the one who told me about the new forthcoming book and I might as well have clicked my heels, I was so excited). Then at some point he told me that HE was Craig Thompson. My jaw nearly fell open and I started giggling. It was really funny. I didn't bother reading the sample. I waited for the full novel to come out. I didn't think it could possibly be better than Blankets and I am pleased to say I was wrong. It was the best book I read in 2011.

Go out and buy it and then be amazed.

Lovecraft’s racism & The World Fantasy Award statuette, with comments from China Miéville.

2011-12-14T10:53:00.007-06:00

On Sunday, a friend of mine wanted to see my World Fantasy Award statuette. When he saw it, he was taken aback. He looked like he’d seen an ugly ghost.

“That’s a bust of LOVECRAFT!” he said.

“Yeah, so?” I said. I had a bad feeling.

Then he showed me a nice little poem that Mr. Lovecraft wrote about our people:

On the Creation of Niggers (1912)
by H. P. Lovecraft

When, long ago, the gods created Earth
In Jove’s fair image Man was shaped at birth.
The beasts for lesser parts were next designed;
Yet were they too remote from humankind.
To fill the gap, and join the rest to Man,
Th’Olympian host conceiv’d a clever plan.
A beast they wrought, in semi-human figure,
Filled it with vice, and called the thing a Nigger.

What a nasty piece of poetry. My first reaction was fury on the level of my character Onyesonwu (think tornadoes, tsunamis…no, bigger like the the red eye of Jupiter). I knew of Lovecraft’s racial issues, anti-Semitism, etc., but I never knew it was this serious. How strong the sentiment must have been within his soul for him to sit down and write that poem. This wasn’t racism metaphorically or abstractly rearing its ugly head within a piece of fiction, this was specific and focused. Who does that? Even in the early 1900s? That excuse of “that was just how most whites were back then” has never flown with me. The fact that a lot of people back then were racists does not change the fact that Lovecraft was a racist.

Anyway, a statuette of this racist man’s head is in my home. A statuette of this racist man’s head is one of my greatest honors as a writer. A statuette of this racist man’s head sits beside my Wole Soyinka Prize for Literature in Africa and my Carl Brandon Society Parallax Award (an award given to the best speculative fiction by a person of color). I’m conflicted.

The first thing I did was consult the hive mind on facebook. And what a conversation ensued. Several authors (including Steve Barnes and Jeff VanderMeer) weighed in on the topic. See the conversation here. This discourse led me to ask the winner of last year’s World Fantasy Award for Best Novel China Miéville (he's also written and lectured extensively on Lovecraft) what he thought. He had much to say on the matter:

“Yes, indeed, the depth and viciousness of Lovecraft’s racism is known to me …It goes further, in my opinion, than ‘merely’ *being* a racist - I follow Michel Houellebecq (in this and in no other arena!) in thinking that Lovecraft’s oeuvre, his work itself, is inspired by and deeply structured with race hatred. As Houellebecq said, it is racism itself that raises in Lovecraft a ‘poetic trance’. He was a bilious anti-semite (though one who married a Jew, because, if you please, he granted that she was ‘assimilated’), and if you read stories like ‘The Horror at Red Hook’, the bile you will see towards people of colour, of all kinds (with particular sneering contempt for African Americans unless they were suitably Polite and therefore were patricianly granted the soubriquet ‘Negro’) and the mixed communities of New York and, above all (surprise surprise - Public Enemy were right) ‘miscegenation’ are extended and toxic.”

It’s not as if I haven’t encountered this issue before. One of my favorite authors is Stephen King. Yet, in several of his novels (including one of my all time favorites- The Talisman), he features Super Duper Magical Negros. That’s a very mild example. I certainly don’t feel that King hates black people.

I recently consumed and adored Norman Mailer’s Pulitzer Prize-winning masterpiece The Executioner’s Song only to then learn that Mailer was a raging and violent sexist and homophobe. I love Gabriel Garcia Marquez but just the description of one of his recent novels, Memories of My Melancholy Whores, made me want to hurl. Another novel tenderly featuring pedophilia, great.

And I love film almost as much as I love literature. What of the film that revolutionized film-making, Birth of a Nation? It was basically a piece of Ku Klux Klan propaganda. When I saw that film in college, I wanted to go out and punch someone and set things on fire and and blow things up. Yet, in terms of technique and narrative form, it was also a masterpiece.

This is something people of color, women, minorities must deal with more than most when striving to be the greatest that they can be in the arts: The fact that many of The Elders we honor and need to learn from hate or hated us.

Do I want “The Howard” (the nickname for the World Fantasy Award statuette. Lovecraft’s full name is “Howard Phillips Lovecraft”) replaced with the head of some other great writer? Maybe. Maybe it’s about that time. Maybe not. What I know I want it to face the history of this leg of literature rather than put it aside or bury it. If this is how some of the great minds of speculative fiction felt, then let’s deal with that... as opposed to never mention it or explain it away. If Lovecraft’s likeness and name are to be used in connection to the World Fantasy Award, I think there should be some discourse about what it means to honor a talented racist.

I loved China’s way of dealing with his “Howard”. He said:

“So where does that leave the World Fantasy Award? Well, in my case, I have always done something very specific and simple. I consider the award inextricable from but not reducible to Lovecraft himself. Therefore, I was very honoured to receive the award as representative of a particular field of literature. And the award itself, the statuette of the man himself? I put it out of sight, in my study, where only I can see it, and I have turned it to face the wall. So I am punishing the little fucker like the malevolent clown he was, I can look at it and remember the honour, and above all I am writing behind Lovecraft’s back. ”

I too am deeply honored to win the World Fantasy Award for Best Novel. It feels so so so right and so so good. The award’s jury was clearly progressive and looking in a new direction. I am the first black person to win the World Fantasy Award for Best Novel since its inception in 1975. Lovecraft is probably rolling in his grave. Or maybe, having become spirit, his mind has cleared of the poisons and now understands the err of his ways. Maybe he is pleased that a book set and about Africa in the future has won an award crafted in his honor. Yeah, I'll go with that image.

Born Naijamerican

2011-11-22T08:26:00.000-06:00

Meaning: "Storyteller"

I pulled this excerpt from the very first novel I wrote titled, Bush Radio. It’s a magical realist literary novel that starts in the United States and ends in Nigeria. It has never been published, of course. Three or four times, it was loved by editors and nearly sold but then was shot down at the last minute because it was too odd.

I remember the responses from several editors who flat out rejected it: “What is this?”; “This novel is divisive! It pits African Americans against Africans!”; “I can’t tell if the main character is American or Nigeria”; “This is too difficult to categorize”…and so on. Each of these responses ended with “Therefore, I’m going to pass on this.” Oddly enough, I heard many of the same comments in response to the fantasy/science fiction novels I later wrote…but in the end, editors within these genres were more open-minded and welcoming of work that was not “an easy fit”, especially in when it came to my YA works.

Nnedi's point of view.

Anyway, this brief novel excerpt is flat out autobiographical. It’s basically my first experience of an African American Studies course. This happened in my freshman year (before the whole paralysis and becoming a writer thing. At this time, I was a pre-med major taking the class to fill a requirement).

The main character in the excerpt is Chioma. However, in this moment, Chioma is me. The scene is word for word what happened that day in class. And it was the first time I really started articulating to myself (and aloud) the reality of diversity within the American black community. I deal with similar themes of culture in my novel Akata Witch, too.

Is the subject matter a bit touchy? Yeah, I guess. Might some be offended? Maybe, I dunno. But have I ever been one to avoid writing about something because it’s a potential mine field? Nope.

Note: In case you were wondering about the title of this little post, “naija” is slang for “Nigerian” or “Nigeria”.

Also Note: The prose of this excerpt is a little rough around the edges. The last time I edited this was 2004, so sue me.

Bush Radio an excerpt

African American Literature 101

It all came together in African American Studies 101. She’d sat in the front to the far right and didn’t say one word for the first months. She considered herself there more to observe and listen than interact. And by that day in the middle of the semester, she’d only grown more confused.

She couldn’t quite get into the literature they’d been reading in the course. It was rooted in the Blues, slavery, and the Harlem Renaissance. Countee Cullen, Jean Toomer, Richard Wright and Ralph Ellison. Barely any woman writers. She wondered if it had to do with the fact that she was of a more scientific mind than literary.

Up to this point, she’d only taken one other English class, all of her other classes being in the sciences unless Latin counted as non-scientific. She wasn’t used to reading fiction from those eras and she wasn’t used to reading poetry at all. She didn’t think she quite understood the abstract symbolism and discussion of social issues.

It didn’t help that Chioma thought the professor was “an arrogant son-of-a-bitch,” not that Chioma would have told a soul how she felt. Instead, she sat in class frowning as he strutted around the room lecturing. He was like a peacock who didn’t care that he’d lost his feathers, his baldhead glimmering under the florescent light. Occasionally, he’d glance at his all black class as he spoke what he felt was fact.

The sound of his voice was annoying. He spoke with a lisp. Not a natural lisp, though. Chioma wouldn’t have had a problem with that. His lisp was from smoking too many cigars. And he smelled strongly of his habit. Even the graded papers he handed back smelled of the smoke. Knowing him and his cockiness, his favorite brand was certainly expensive. And Chioma sensed that Professor Carre wasn’t the most sincere of persons. On more than one occasion, she’d seen female students slipping into his office, their bodies communicating a non-academic language.

This day, they were discussing Their Eyes Were Watching God. Chioma had warmed to this one. Aside from the fact that Hurston was the only female author they were studying, she had a worldlier feel that made Chioma comfortable. And Chioma liked Hurston’s explorative background, how she was able to go to Haiti and submerge herself in the culture. She also thought the novel was simply damn good. This particular day, Professor Carre was discussing dialect and slang, and Chioma didn’t like what he was saying.

“Y’all know what I mean,” the professor was saying. He strutted past Chioma and she stifled a sneeze. “It’s one thing when you’re in class or at work, but it’s anotha’ thang when you with yo’ folks.”

The whole class chuckled, except Chioma. She looked around, a mild smile on her face.

“Ain’t no way y’all can get away from it,” he said with a chuckle. “You can grow up in the whitest of neighborhoods but you still find it in you somewhere. Our people were dragged to this country and forced to learn a foreign language. Of course, they incorporated their own languages and natural poetics into the English that they were taught in piecemeal, this is how you get the dialect we speak. So since we all are the descendants of slaves, we got that way of speaking in us.”

Chioma’s hand shot into the air before she was aware of it. Her heart pounded in her ears and her hands shook and sweated. She didn’t bring her hand, however. She had to say something, despite the fact that she didn’t want to cause a disturbance. She hated confrontation. But the professor was excluding her from the class. It wasn’t fair.

“Yes?”

“Well, I don’t know about anyone else…but…I think…you’re generalizing about all of us here. I mean, I’m not a direct descendant of the slaves brought here …not really, not that I know of,” she said quietly. “My parents are from Nigeria. I don’t use that sort of…dialect.”

Chioma quickly realized that her words hadn’t come out the way she meant them to. The entire room was silent. Oy, Chioma frantically thought. Oy vey. But, well, she wasn’t a direct descendant of slaves, not the slaves brought to America. She wasn’t trying to be arrogant. Hell, she thought, my ancestors may have been the sellers of the slaves! Ugh, that’s even worse. But she didn’t like Carre’s assumptions. Here she was in a class full of blacks and never had she felt so alone. How come no one else had raised a hand to correct the professor? Maybe everyone else is“African American” African-American, she thought. Or Caribbean? Shit.

“I hear how you speak,” her professor said. “Nigeria was colonized by the British, thus your speech is very proper….”

He went on to say more things that Chioma didn’t agree with. He didn’t apologize for generalizing nor did he correct himself. Chioma just sank back into her seat and let him babble, preen and preach in his lispy African American male professor dialect. She felt all eyes on her for the remainder of the semester and she never said another word in the class.

She earned a “B” in the course by the skin of her teeth.

Who Fears Death has won the World Fantasy Award for Best Novel!

2011-10-30T22:12:00.003-05:00

My "Howard" Nigeria-fied

Who Fears Death has won the World Fantasy Award for Best Novel! See the full list of winners here.

And where was I when this awesome news was announced? In a maximum security jail in Chicago visiting one of my students who'd gotten into some trouble. I needed to make sure he was ok. He was. As much as he could be. He’s maintaining.

It was good to see him. He said he was enjoying the latest book I’d sent him- a copy of His Dark Materials. Regardless, seeing him there made my heart ache and eyes burn (as it did back in April). He’s a brilliant young man.

I came out of there fighting sadness. Got into my car and looked at my cell phone (you can't bring your cell phone into the jail). Even as I picked it up, it buzzed as it received another text. When I flipped it open, my eyes nearly popped out of my head. For several minutes I was in a sort of mental turmoil as my sadness battled my extreme happiness. I drove to my mother's house in a sort of shock (had to pick up Anyaugo).

Happy Flower by Anyaugo Okorafor

But when I got there, my family had already heard the news from my editor and I could do nothing but give in to the happy dancing and confetti throwing. Now, only an hour later, I sit here smiling.

I am really proud of this novel. I worked so hard on it. It worked so hard on me. This is beautiful.

Nnedi's Definition of Feminism

2011-08-05T14:17:00.000-05:00

symbol for "Storyteller" from Zahrah the Windseeker

Time and time again, people ask me the same question, "Are you a feminist?" That's east to answer. Yes, I am. Then they ask, "What is your definition of feminism?" I guess people are just trying to feel out where I stand on things. I think some want to make sure that I don't want to kill all men or blow up strip clubs or something. Thus, I feel inclined to post my definition here. Also, posting this will give me a link that I can pass along when the question arises again, as I know it will.

Nnedi's Definition of Feminism:

There are many different definitions of "feminism".

My definition is "a positive energetic push toward equality that requires female empowerment. This empowerment demands/requires active male participation and empathizing." Only with this empowerment can balance within humanity be achieved (and I do believe such a thing is possible). My definition also acknowledges the idea that "gender" is more complicated/complex than just "male" and "female" (I guess you can say the same about "sex", too).

Obviously, women and men are biologically different (though not as much as so many like to think. We are certianly NOT opposites). These differences may mean that there may be particular roles that each sex/gender may tend toward (my overuse of the word "may" is intentional). However, such roles certainly are not set in stone.

Hope that clears things up for folks who might have questions.

Space Flight Awareness: Witnessing the Launch

2011-07-15T08:12:00.003-05:00

It all started on June 8^th, 2011 with an email from my good friend Tom Wagner (we met as students at the Clarion East Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Workshop in 2001).

“You have interest in attending the final shuttle launch as a VIP?” he asked. “No guarantees, but I get to nominate people and the deadline is today.” Tom is a NASA Cryosphere program scientist. He’s quite a personality, too. See him here to get what I mean. Tom is also the one who gave me an encouraging enthusiastic shove when he saw me leaning toward writing African-based science fiction.

Getting invited by NASA as a VIP guest was a long shot, plus it would disrupt my schedule, but I said “Sure!” and sent him my bio. Then I proceeded to forget about the whole thing. Two weeks later, an invitation from NASA arrived in the mail. Suddenly, I had an important decision to make.

This was the final Space Shuttle launch for NASA, ending three decades of crewed flight into Earth’s orbit. Sadly, the program is being retired (that’s another discussion for another day). It was a chance to see an exercise in American technological greatness. Space travel. My daughter could witness space travel. She’d love it!

I’ve always had a hard time writing about space. I am very much an earthling. I don’t see myself ever leaving this planet while I am alive (I may be more adventurous after I die, heh). There is so much yet to discover (and fix) on earth, why look elsewhere? And my spiritual beliefs and the systems of magic I’m attracted to are earth-based, born and rooted deep in the soil. They are not in the “heavens”. Also, when I write about something, I have to get and feel close to the subject. I never feel close to “space”, no matter how much research I do. Maybe if I see the Space Shuttle launch this will change, I thought.

The launch of the STS-135: Atlantis Space Shuttle was scheduled for 11:26 am EDT on July 8^th from Pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Just outside of Orlando. Orlando? I thought. Home of Disneyworld and lots of frogs, manatees, alligators and dolphins?

I decided to go.

Days before the launch date, the forecast looked dismal. It predicted rain and thunderstorms for the next ten days! A rain-free, storm-free zone is needed for 23 miles around the launch site, among other things, for Atlantis to take off.

Anya and I at Midway Airport

When Anya and I arrived in Orlando, it was raining aggressively. After an annoying setback (our rental car died on us 10 minutes outside the airport... unbelievable), we made it to our hotel room by 10pm. The forecast was still bad and I was sure the launch would be delayed. An update would be given at 1:30am but I was too tired to stay up. I decided to check on things at 5am (we were about an hour away from the space center).

For some reason, I woke at 3am. I called the NASA VIP hotline. The woman who answered said that so far things were still on schedule. I asked her when she thought we should head to the space center. She considered it for a moment and then said, “Probably in about fifteen minutes.” Did I mention it was 3am? I dragged Anya out of bed and we were on the road by 3:30 am.

I was using a GPS for the first time in my LIFE (yep, never used one before) and I still didn’t quite know how to use it. Nevertheless, I took the chance and relied on that tiny clever gadget to get us where we needed to go. It was dark. Aside from being stuck on one the night before, I knew nothing about Florida's roads (last time I’d been in Florida was when I was 8). But we had a full tank of gas, a rental car that worked, some Pringles and a chatty navigation device.

Stuck in traffic, 4 mi. from the space center

The first 45 minutes of the hour long drive to the Kennedy Space Center were smooth sailing. Then 6 miles from our destination (according the GPS), we hit serious traffic. We were stuck there for 3 hours. No bathroom. Nowhere to turn. The space center is on a stretch of land that is forest, swamp and a lagoon. If we opened the windows, mosquitoes attacked.

Made it!

The traffic was due to the influx of people and a thorough security check point. Once we got past that, we sped on to the Space Center’s visitor headquarters and parked. It was daylight by this time. As soon as Anya got out, she looked down, grinned and caught a frog the size of a thumbnail. Frogs are always a good omen.

It's a 'gator!

On our walk to the Space Center visitor headquarters, we spotted an alligator looking at us from a creek and some birds Anya came to call “spread-leg birds” because of the comical way they walked. We took a bus to the VIP viewing site at Banana Creek. We were two hours early. In the distance, over the water, there it was: the Space Shuttle at Pad 39A (with its rocket boosters, external tank, etc). And of course, there was a large countdown clock in front of the bleachers.

The grasshopper.

After one and half hours of sitting in the sun, hearing officials say wonderful things about the Space Shuttle Program and NASA, catching a lovely grasshopper, dealing with Anya’s restlessness, and fighting drowsiness, the 30-minute countdown began. T-30 minutes to take-off. It was miraculous; the thick clouds dissipated and rain had stopped.

Waiting.

It started to dawn on me that the space shuttle might actually take off. We were going to be there to witness history. There was festivity in the air as it seemed to dawn on the people around us, too. Every time the clock stopped for whatever reason, we all held our breath. When it restarted, we applauded.

Anya had her trusty kid binoculars. I focused on the launch pad 3 miles away and the hustle and bustle that must have been going on to make it all happen. Scientists, astronauts, technicians, etc were all doing a million different important things, some great, some minute, all knowing that the earthly goddess known as Mother Nature could foil their plans at any moment, if she so chose. There is a lesson in that.

It was two minutes to take off. I had two cameras. One to take pictures, one to video. But I wanted to see it with my own eyes. And because I have sensitive ears and noise often feels tangible to me, I was afraid I was going to drop both of them when the shuttle launched. Anya wasn’t interested in taking pictures, either.

10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1! Blast off.

Once everyone saw the plumes of exhaust, people started cheering. It was a serious “o-m-g moment”. It was happening right in front of me. I’ve seen launches plenty of times on TV but this felt, for lack of a better word, real. It was right over there. And I was tingly with exhilaration and fear, it was so close. Then there was the noise. It was pressing on my face. Vibrating through my body.

Up up up, it went. Then it punched through the thin clouds. And then it was gone. You could see its shadow reflecting on the clouds. It took less than a minute. All that air travel and stress and rushing and waiting and sitting and freaking out for something that took less than a minute. And it was absolutely awe-inspiring. Well worth every single hour. I’d have gone through three times all that just to see the look of jaw-dropping amazement on Anya’s face.

My daughter and I watched human beings leave the planet. It was beautiful. It left a tree of white exhaust lingering in the air like a ghost. Later there would be acid rain from that exhaust cloud as the droplets of hydrochloric acid drifted to the earth.

I think I can write about space travel now.

Meeting Whoopi Goldberg and more...

2011-06-05T16:21:00.001-05:00

I met with Whoopi Goldberg on Thursday (June 2nd) at ABC Studios in New York. I can't discuss the details, but the meeting had to do with my work. It went well. *Smile*. Whoopi said that she was a huge fan of science fiction and that one of her favorite authors was Octavia Butler. I don't think any of this is much of a secret, really. Tor.com recently did a blog post called Whoopi Goldberg is an MVP of Onscreen SFF, and that summed things up rather well. So the fact that the cosmos brought our paths together is a beautiful thing.

While in NY, I also got to meet Betsy Wollheim (editor of Who Fears Death, also publisher and co-owner of DAW Books) in person for the first time! That was quite memorable. And though I'd just seen my YA editor Sharyn November at Wiscon (a Feminist Science Fiction convention held in Madison, Wisconsin), it was really great to see her again so soon after.

My editors
Betsy Wollheim & Sharyn November

I got to meet the folks at DAW and grace the buildings that housed Penguin and DAW. And then late that night, I went to the top of the Empire State Building with Betsy where we learned that there are crazy moths that zoom around the building's powerful lights. They reminded me of the Ogoni ants in Zahrah the Windseeker and the white owls in The Shadow Speaker, who happily dwell at the top of the plant towers of Ginen. All in all, my second trip to New York City rocked.

Witches deploy 500 members to Abuja for Jonathan’s inauguration

2011-05-27T05:58:00.005-05:00

I couldn't resist posting this news story. It's too funny. I didn't know of this particular organization (The Witches and Wizards Association of Nigeria). Heehee, maybe I should join (heck, I AM from Arondizuogu, whose people apparently are known for their adeptness with witchcraft).

The witches in this news story even met at Zuma Rock, just like in my novel Akata Witch. LOL!! Love it. Now if these witches could just do something in Nigeria about road safety and corruption. :-)

Witches deploy 500 members to Abuja for Jonathan’s inauguration

By TAIWO OLUWADARE
Friday, May 27, 2011

SUN NEWS

The Witches and Wizards Association of Nigeria (WITZAN), has deployed 500 witches to Abuja and other parts of Ahead of Nigeria to prevent any tragic occurrence and ensure peaceful inauguration on May 29.

According to its national co-ordinator, Dr Okhue Iboi, the decision was taken after an emergency meeting at Zuma rock, Niger State. WITZAN also warned President Goodluck Jonathan to take adequate security as bad people and disgruntled politicians are planning to cause problems.

Iboi, however, disclosed that the nation would soon have a respite from the people currently throwing bombs all over the places as they would be exposed: “We are going to expose those sponsoring bomb blasts in the country after May 29. They have been caged already. We are going to use our power to cause them to come out and confess their misdeeds. Nigerians would be surprised at how the saboteurs would be exposed.”

He said it was revealed to the witches as far back as last year that no other candidate except Jonathan would rule the nation. The association which also predicted the failure of both former military president Ibrahim Badamosi Babangida and vice president Atiku Abubakar in their presidential quests also disclosed that Jonathan would serve his four-year tenure at the end of which Nigerians would be begging him to go for another term because he has been chosen by God to lead the nation.

Iboi, however, warned Jonathan to beware of sycophants, while warning the incoming ministers and advisers to co-operate with the president and discharge their duties with dedication. The witches warned former Head of State, Major-General Muhammadu Buhari (retd) to stop wasting his time pursuing the presidency:

“Buhari should stop wasting his time because his time is past. He can never rule the nation again. His time is gone.” The incoming National Assembly will deliver. This is the time Nigerians will know that they have real legislators.

“Some people look at us as if we are evil minded people. Not all witches are bad. Our own type of witchcraft is progressive. We are willing to intervene in the affairs of the country anytime the government decides to seek our counsel. We have the solutions to bring lasting peace to the country. Witches and wizards in the country are ready to help restore Nigeria’s lost glory.

“We saw June 12 crisis long before it happened and we warned the late Chief M.K.O. Abiola but he ignored us. Abiola would have been Nigeria’s president but some of us decided to punish him over the role he played in scuttling the late Chief Obafemi Awolowo presidential ambition. We warned him not to waste his time and life. This was reported in some national dailies. We also dealt with the late General Sani Abacha for the execution of the late Ken Saro-Wiwa.”

Concept art for WHO FEARS DEATH: The Movie

2011-05-09T10:31:00.001-05:00

This is the first piece of concept art for WHO FEARS DEATH: The movie (click on the image for a larger view). It was created by Kenyan painter Yvonne Muinde (who has worked on many films including- Avatar, Happy Feet, and Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith).

This scene depicts Onyesonwu and her companions' initial encounter with The Red People. The sandstorm parts and the next phase of the journey begins.

The Kenyan science fiction short film Pumzi is now available for purchase!!

2011-04-26T10:18:00.005-05:00

The Kenyan science fiction short film Pumzi is now avaialble for puchase!! View the trailer for the film here. It is featured with three other brilliant African shorts from Focus Film's Africa First Program. Buy it here.

Pumzi was directed by Wanuri Kahiu (who will direct Who Fears Death: The Movie, the film version of my novel Who Fears Death). I asked Wanuri how she came to write Pumzi. She said that she was not a big reader of science fiction and that the STORY led her to science fiction. Pumzi is fabulous, and it is a new type of science fiction, grown completely from African soil. I hope to see more like it, on the screen and in print.

When you sit down to watch Pumzi, make sure you have a nice tall glass of water beside you. You will want to drink it. :-)

Aman Iman ( means "water is Life" in Tamashek).

Nnedi Okorafor on her personal apocalypse and why she writes about abnormalities.

2011-04-19T10:29:00.000-05:00

Proprioception

by Nnedi Okorafor
(originally posted on Penguin.com)

I've always been interested in people labeled as "abnormal" or "abomination".

In my novel Zahrah the Windseeker, Zahrah is born with the "curse" of vine-laden dada hair. In The Shadow Speaker, Ejii is a "freakish" product of nuclear fallout and peace bombs. Who Fears Death's main character is an "ugly half-breed" with skin and coarse wooly hair the color of desert sand. In my recent short story, "The Book of Phoenix" (which is linked to Who Fears Death), Phoenix was created in a lab. She is two years old but looks and feels 40 (she even has hot flashes!) and calls herself as an "abomination".

I continue to explore physical abnormality in my two latest stories. "Wahala" is a short story published in the Life on Mars anthology and set in the world of The Shadow Speaker. Its main character Fisayo is a product of the nuclear apocalypse like Ejii. Fisayo is venturing across the Sahara Desert because her parents think she should not have been born. In my novel Akata Witch, Sunny is an American-born albino Nigerian girl who learns that she's also a witch.

Outcasts, freaks, the disfigured, the grotesquely enhanced… I write their narratives.

Read the rest here.

A Review of WHO FEARS DEATH by Steven Barnes

2011-04-02T08:34:00.001-05:00

Beyond Mere Genre

By Steven Barnes

originally published in The American Book Review

Who Fears Death

By Nnedi Okorafor

DAW Books

http://us.penguingroup.com

304 pages; cloth, $24.95

“What makes you think that you should understand it all?” he asked. “That's a lesson you have to learn, instead of being angry all the time. We'll never know exactly why we are, what we are, and so on. All you can do is follow your path all the way to the wilderness, and then continue along because that's what must be.”

A fascinating passage from a remarkable book, an exploration of hate and love, sex and power, male and female, life and death by a young writer in enviable control of her craft. Make no mistake: Who Fears Death is not a polemic, but it contains strong views on some very difficult subjects indeed. The author, Nnedi Okorafor, has been lambasted for her thematic explorations of the practice of female genital mutilation (I refuse to call it “circumcision”: circumcision does not prevent men from achieving orgasm. This practice is the removal of the clitoris and critical nerve tissue. Its value and purpose may be debatable; the neurological result is not). This section of her book, which deals with the education and ascendance to near-godhood of a young woman named Onyesonwu (literally, “Who Fears Death”), is but one set of wrenching, powerful images in a book filled with them.

Set in a post-apocalyptic Africa, we never quite see what has happened to Europe and Asia, although remnants of relatively advanced technologies remain among the tribal trappings. Computers still flicker to life, and odd machines seem to gather water from the clouds. But communications have broken down, there are few machines, and most technology seems archaic or on the edge of collapse.

Tribal wars threaten genocide constantly, and villages can turn from welcoming to suspicious to mob-homicidal in the turn of a page.

It is fair to say that women are the center of good in this book: you really wouldn’t want to be a man in Onyesonwu’s world. Men are either rapists, betrayers, helpless, or helpmates who meet ugly ends. The question of gender identity and roles looms hugely, and if one senses an ocean of boiling anger behind some of the images and linguistics, that can probably be understood, given the historical facts underlying the fantasy here.

Make no mistake, for all the post-apocalyptic trappings, this is not science fiction in any classical sense. This is fantasy, dealing with the yearnings of the human heart for individual emotional reality to be directly extended to the outer world. While Okorafor is initially coy about it, by halfway through the book, we can be certain that, yes, her characters are not hallucinating, not insane, not confusing the inner world of meditative or shamanic experience with the outer objective reality.

In this world, magic works. Human Beings really can transform into animals, and summon elemental powers. It is to Okorafor’s considerable credit that she slides us into that world as gradually as she does, playing peek-a-boo with our assumptions: are they or aren’t they? Is she or isn’t she? As her half-breed protagonist struggles to understand the power within her by seeking mentors or teachers, who she is never quite certain she can trust.

Who Fears Death is also about personal responsibility, community, and the creation of family, as the Okeke woman Onyesonwu travels through an African wasteland of desert, tiny villages, war-torn landscapes, and waterholes, seeking vengeance against the man who raped her mother and sired her, a wizard of such power that even Onyesonwu’s mighty gifts seem insufficient, and the outcome of the book held in serious doubt.

This is not a pretty world, although it holds gentle values, and is told in oft-exquisite prose. Sexuality is a respite from almost unendurable despair, and love is so volatile, so fragile, that even to hope for its existence, let alone growth and prospering, would seem to be like betting on a butterfly in a blast furnace.

And yet…hope exists, between mother and daughter, father and daughter, lover and beloved. As much pain and betrayal as can be found in Who Fears Death as it winds its way closer and closer to the inevitable confrontation, as allies and friends die, are torn to pieces or fall by the wayside, as betrayal and disappointment seems to dog their every step, the book never loses hope.

And that is where the quality of an African Magical Realism seems to come in. The question of what is subjective and what is objective, what we should believe- our heads or our hearts- never seems far from the page. Okorafor almost dares us to disbelieve, to assume, to demand that Onyesonwu conform to our expectations, or the world that she walks to our maps of reality. If the gender philosophy beneath the prose seems scathingly radicalized at times, it never feels dishonest. If the violence is occasionally operatic, never is it inappropriate or exploitative.

Who Fears Death strikes one as a work grounded in an understanding of life, emotion, and the cycles of existence decidedly non-European, and as such is a terrifically valuable addition to the fantasy cycles published in the bleached annals of traditional speculative fiction. But the intense emotions and suspicion that Okorafor has a very serious intent indeed, as well as her linguistic gifts make Who Fears Death a serious work, with values beyond “mere” genre, and a work that speaks very well for the future of an exceedingly promising young writer.

Steven Barnes is the author of 23 novels, has written for television’s Outer Limits and Twilight Zone, and with his wife novelist, Tananarive Due, was the recipient of an NAACP Image Award for the mystery novel In the Night of the Heat.

READ THE FIRST TWO CHAPTERS OF

WHO FEARS DEATH HERE

WHO FEARS DEATH is available where books are sold, including:
A Room of One's Own Bookstore
Afriware
Indiebound
Dreamhaven Books
The King's English Bookshop
Amazon
Barnes and Noble

Two Nice Reviews for Two Nnedi Stories

2011-03-24T07:19:00.000-05:00

Here are two reviews from the Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books. One is for my forthcoming novel Akata Witch and the other is for Life on Mars: Tales from the New Frontier (which includes my short story "Wahala"). Both books are scheduled for release on the same day, April 14th (That's my brother Emezie's birthday, whoohoo! It's five days after mine. He was supposed to be born on my birthday but I guess he wanted to have his own day, heh).

"Wahala" takes place in the world of The Shadow Speaker. It starts in Nigeria and ends in Niger. It is my first story about aliens (and certainly not my last). As the Publishers Weekly review said, the story "explains why Martians might particularly like Nigerians." ;-). See my review of District 9 if you have any questions about what I might possibly be referencing. It's interesting. I realize both Akata Witch and "Wahala" are about physical differences and otherness. Hmm.

The Reviews:

Okorafor, Nnedi                 Akata Witch.            Viking, 2011    [368p]
ISBN 978-0-670-01196-4         $17.99
Reviewed from galleys         R       Gr. 6-9
For most of her twelve years, Sunny has confused people: West African by blood, she is also American by birth and as an albino, she is pale as “sour milk.” Her Nigerian classmates rarely let her forget these two apparent sins, calling her “akata witch” and “white ghost.” As it turns out, these schoolyard taunts aren’t far from the truth: when a premonition leads Sunny to befriend her two neighbors, she discovers that she is a Leopard person—a mystic with natural juju and magical abilities. Since Sunny was born to non-magical parents, however, she lacks a supernatural heritage, making her an inexperienced and ignorant Free Agent, albeit a powerful one. Now she’s trying to get up to paranormal speed with her new magical friends while preparing to take down the Black Hat, a rogue Leopard using ritualized killings to unleash the ultimate evil spirit onto the world. Based on the religious customs of the Nigerian Igbo people, the spiritual world here may at first feel unfamiliar to Western readers, but fans of fantasy will immediately recognize familiar tropes: the unschooled novice, the band of hopeful but rebellious friends, and of course, the all-powerful bad guy. Though the pacing stumbles occasionally, Okorafor manages to build a stunning world around these familiar structures, imbuing each with a rich sense of cultural identity and background. Sunny’s position as a fledgling Leopard makes an organic access point for readers, and her stumbles in the spiritual world are humorous but believable. This is a uniquely engaging fantasy that will have young readers looking for evidence of their own natural juju. KQG

Strahan, Jonathan, ed. Life on Mars: Tales from the New Frontier. Viking, 2011 [336p] ISBN 978-0-670-01216-9 $19.99
Reviewed from galleys R Gr. 9 up
Introduced with a concise, designed-to-intrigue history of both the science and the science fiction involving the Red Planet, this teen-focused short-story collection features a well-balanced mix of familiar YA faces (such as Nnedi Okorafor and Ellen Klages) and adult sci-fi heavy hitters (among others, Nancy Kress, Ian McDonald, and iconic chronicler of Mars Kim Stanley Robinson, whose contribution closes out the book) that will maximize crossover appeal. The result is a rewarding progression of smoothly written, provocative, surprising tales (all save the Robinson appearing for the first time here) whose disparate approaches achieve a sense of cohesion through the vivid descriptions of Mars’ eerie beauty, deadly challenges, and timeless appeal. Tales range from sociopolitical commentary (Okorafor’s meditation on racism and mutation) to survival drama (McDonald’s heroine facing “a scream of sand past the irised-shut windows when the equinox dust storms blew for weeks on end”) to poignant, thoughtful inquiry into the human condition (Kress’s exploration of the way genetic modification can make humans alien to their own species after five generations apart). The themes of homesickness, pioneer challenges, generational and interplanetary disconnect, and the arrogance and potential of remaking a planet echo across the various stories, each of which leaves the reader with a satisfying twist or revelation (with Okorafor, Kress, and Robinson offering particular standouts). Recommend this equally to teen sci-fi fans looking for new authors or adult lit recommendations and adult sci-fi fans curious about what YA lit has to offer. CG

Spider the Artist: Anansi Droids 419

2011-03-15T10:56:00.002-05:00

"spiders web": adinkra symbol of wisdom,
creativity and the complexities of life

Recently, I was talking to Wanuri Kahiu, director of the Kenyan science fiction short film Pumzi (she's also set to direct Who Fears Death: The Movie). I asked her how she came to science fiction . She said that she didn't grow up reading or watching science fiction, that it was organic. "The story led me to science fiction," she said.

I had a similar experience. As a kid, I read everything, including some science fiction but not much (I didn't see a hint of myself in science fiction novels back then- no girls, no blacks. I didn't purposely shy away from sf, I simply was never drawn to it and I didn't have anyone to turn me on to it). Yes, I grew up consuming Isaac Asimov books like crazy...but not his science fiction novels, his science books (though I did read I, Robot...I enjoyed reading about the robots). As the story of Pumzi led Wanuri to science fiction, the stories of Zahrah the Windseeker, The Shadow Speaker and Who Fears Death led me to it.

My short story "Spider the Artist" was pivotal for me. It was my first time consciously writing "pure" science fiction. One day, editor John Joseph Adams had come to me and asked me to write a story for his anthology Seeds of Change. He said, no fantasy, just science fiction.The idea was a bit foreign for me because my world on and off the page is full of magic and fantasy. However, I always like a good challenge so I took him up on it. "Spider the Artist" was the result.

After writing it back in 2008, I was sure of two things: 1. That I was on the right path with Who Fears Death (I was editing it around the time I wrote "Spider the Artist" and I remember going back to it and turning the volume up on some things). 2. That I would write more science fiction. I liked the taste very much. I thank John Joseph Adams for gently nudging me to the table. I think he changed the direction of my work.

A burst pipeline in Nigeria

Originally printed in Seeds of Change, you can now read "Spider the Artist" (a finalist for the WSFA Small Press Award) online in Lightspeed Magazine.

Here's a brief description: "In “Spider the Artist,” Nnedi Okorafor takes us to Nigeria of the future, where Big Oil protects the pipelines with spider-like AIs known as zombies, and tells the tale of a woman who faces down one of the murderous machines armed only with a guitar."

It's a story about the Niger Delta conflict, domestic violence, and Anansi Droids 419 who decide to weave their own destinies ...some reviewers have called it a love story, too, heh. It remains one of my favorite short stories. Hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it.

-Nnedimma Nkemdili Okorafor-

I have a new story in Clarkesworld Magazine...but let me explain first. :-)

2011-03-02T06:35:00.000-06:00

The photo I used to imagine the face of Phoenix.

Read The Book of Phoenix in Clarkesworld Magazine here

Download the audio version here

Ok, so, yes yes yes, when it comes to the written word, the author is not there to explain stuff. So the general idea is to write the story in such a way that the reader can collect everything from the story’s words. Well, this story is an oral tale shaped into a written one (which why I love that fact that there's an audio version), so I’ll bend the rules a bit. ;-). Though “The Book of Phoenix” stands on its own, I think the following information adds some spice to the narrative, whether you've read the book or not.

Months back, my novel Who Fears Death was optioned by producer Kisha Cameron-Dingle of Completion Films. Kenyan director Wanuri Kahiu is attached to the project. While preparing to write the screenplay weeks ago, Wanuri asked me to expand on some core ideas from Who Fears Death. I went on to write an origin story for The Great Book (what I wrote surprised me) and the myth of the Ewu-born (a nasty little tale). “The Book of Phoenix” was the longest piece and the only one that I decided to submit for publication.

“The Book of Phoenix” is an excerpt from The Great Book (the holy book of the Nuru and Okeke people in Who Fears Death) and set during the times of darkness "when the goddess Ani's back was still turned". Before the bombs. The Great Book is a book of voices, truths, lies, masked histories, and naked embellishments. The same can be said about this story (“The Book of Phoenix”). Voices…yes, I heard the character in “The Book of Phoenix” clearly.

Also, in Who Fears Death, the 6-year-old Onyesonwu mentions stories in The Great Book that involve men who eat glass and can walk through walls.

“The Book of Phoenix” is an ancient story from a land in future Africa. Yes, it’s weird. But did anyone read Amos Tutuola’s Pauper, Brawler, and Slanderer? You want to know really weird, read that.

Ha ha, I hope this helps. Enjoy!

-Nnedimma Nkemdili Okorafor-

Tor.com features The Go-Slow, a short story by Nnedi Okorafor

2011-02-15T22:13:00.001-06:00

Read my latest short story, The Go-Slow, here on Tor.com.

A little about the story:

A Nollywood actor's life changes on the Nigerian roads. Homicidal animals and a traffic jam - it's just not Nkem's day.

Ms. Magazine reviews Akata Witch

2011-01-23T08:08:00.002-06:00

WORLD OF MAGIC: Review of Akata Witch

by Nisi Shawl

originally published in Ms. Magazine (Winter 2011)

Akata Witch

by Nnedi Okorafor

Viking

release date: April 2011

Young-adult fiction is influential; women and men often act out stories they read as teens. But try finding feminism in popular fantasies such as Stephenie Meyer's Twilight, or communities of color in Rowling's best-selling Harry Potter series. Nnedi Okorafor's books are a welcome contrast. The author of several award-winning fantasies for young people and an acclaimed novel about rape, Okorafor writes strong heroines making magical journeys of discovery through culturally diverse landscapes.

"This world is bigger than you," the adults in Sunny Nwazue's life keep telling her. Sunny, 12-year-old heroine of Okorafor's latest young adult novel, Akata Witch, lives in a world very much like our own: vital, busy, and in no way limited by national borders. Born in the U.S. of Nigerian parents (like her creator), Sunny returns with her family to Africa at the age of 9 to happily eat roaring hot pepper soup with Igbo, Efik, and the many other ethnic groups who call their town of Aba home. But she faces discrimination as an albino and an akata, or "foreign-born" black, and boys refuse to take her soccer playing seriously. Then Sunny's dawning adolescence awakens her latent magical abilities, and she's more different than ever. She can turn invisible. She can see the future.

Now Sunny must navigate her way not just among Nigeria's many ethnicities but between the pan-tribal practitioners of juju (a West African term for magic) who are known as the Leopard People, and the Lambs--this book's counterpart to the non-magical Muggles of Harry Potter fame. Leopard People inhabit all nations under a multitude of different names, forming secret societies in Asia, Africa, Europe, North and South America--everywhere.

Naturally, Sunny's parents are Lambs. They're ignorant of their daughter's juju initiation, a grittily literal journey to the center of the Earth, and of her further magical adventures, and she has to keep them that way--even when Sunny's disregard for juju's rules gets her spirited away for punishment to the secret neighborhood of Leopard Knocks His Foot. Even when she and her fellow apprentices are given the task of stopping a seral killer who targets children.

As they make their constant pronouncements about the world's immensity, adults tell Sunny that it will go on without her. Feisty Sunny protests her teachers' callous attitude, though the idea reassures as much as it horrifies her. She faces down the serial killer with a smile, knowing that she will die someday but the world will continue and that its end, which she has magically foreseen, can become a new beginning.

As the readership for young adult fantasy widens and deepens, attracting adults of all ages, more of us will be looking for books by authors whose imaginations surpass the restrictions of the past: sexism, colonialism, and the rest. And we'll find them. Akata Witch is a spectacular tale of a young woman coming to power in a truly global environment. Sunny's adventures give her a context for her special abilities and a gloriously huge arena in which to work her innate magic: the wide, wide world.

NISI SHAWL is the author of Filter House and a winner of the 2008 James Tiptree, Jr. Award; she will be the 2011 Guest of Honor at WisCon, the annual feminist science fiction convention.

Pre-order Akata Witch at Barnes and Noble or Amazon.com. The novel will be released April 14th, 2011.

(an nsibidi symbol used in Akata Witch)

Nnedi Okorafor on The Africa Channel's "Behind the Words" Part 1

2010-12-30T07:58:00.001-06:00

This is the first ten minutes of my episode on the Africa Channel (it's a full hour long). It was taped back in July 2010. It's always hard for me to watch myself, so I haven't watched this yet. Hope you like it and hope I don't put my foot in my mouth too many times, ha ha. The taping was rather lengthy, so after a while, I was just talking and talking.

Latest news about Akata Witch

2010-12-15T15:18:00.011-06:00

I just learned that my forthcoming novel, AKATA WITCH, received a wonderful blurb from one of my favorite YA authors, Jonathan Stroud. He wrote the most excellent Bartimaeus series (it's a fantasy series steeped in Egyptian and Middle Eastern magic and history. If you haven't read it, check it out. That series is nuts! It is half told from the perspective of a fouled-tempered demon who has a habit of simultaneously speaking in prose and footnotes). I am totally honored that he read and enjoyed my novel:

Nnedi Okorafor is opening doors into strange and beautiful new worlds. Her heroes are beguiling, her magic firmly rooted in real places and real things. Rich, mysterious and convincing, AKATA WITCH takes fantasy in a haunting new direction.
-Jonathan Stroud, author of the Bartimaeus series

WHOHOO!

Secondly, I recently learned that AKATA WITCH is a Junior Library Guild Selection. My first novel to be selected for a book club edition! I am pleased.

AKATA WITCH will be released by Viking (Penguin Books) on April 14th, 2011.

Lastly, my adult novel, WHO FEARS DEATH, is a 2010 Goodreads Choice Awards Official Nominee in the category of Fantasy. If you'd like to cast a vote for it, click here.

This is an Nsibidi symbol which means, "love". ;-)

Who Fears Death Optioned for a Film

2010-10-13T11:31:00.017-05:00

My novel, Who Fears Death, has been optioned by film producer Kisha Cameron-Dingle. Kisha is the program director of the Focus Features Africa First Short Film Program, a program for filmmakers from Africa. She associate produced “Sometimes in April” and “Bamboozled."

Needless to say, I’m very excited. This is one of those things where it is clear that the ancestors helped this to happen.

Kisha and I met up some weeks ago. When I handed her a copy of Who Fears Death, I didn’t expect her to get to it for a while. Nevertheless, days later, she found herself in the hair salon needing something to read. She happened to have Who Fears Death with her. Once she started it, she devoured it in a matter of days.

Most intriguing is the group of artists Kisha is gathering to push this film into being. Things are still coming together but I can say that award-winning Kenyan film director Wanuri Kahiu (who wrote and directed Pumzi) will direct the film.

As all this was coming together, two weeks ago Wanuri and I both happened to be in Port of Spain, Trinidad at the same time (I was there to do some author events for Trinidad/Tobago's National Library Week and she was there for the screening of Pumzi at a film festival). And so it was in this most intriguing part of the world that we met in person for the first time.

Wanuri and me at the library in Port of Spain, Trinidad.

When we spoke, it was clear that we had potent creative chemistry. She had read two thirds of Who Fears Death and the ideas she was throwing at me had me grinning for the rest of my time there. Respect to the ancestors.

I’m not going to dwell on the likelihood/unlikelihood of books making it to film…just as I never dwelled on the likelihood/unlikelihood of having my strange African speculative fiction stories make it to print. I’ll just keep doing what I do and celebrating such landmarks as they come. This one is cool as heck.

See me doing a happy dance and throwing confetti!

Here are trailers for two of Wanuri's films:

Get it straight

2010-08-10T14:31:00.032-05:00

Today I unveiled the cover of my forthcoming novel Akata Witch, a fantasy narrative set in present-day Nigeria. Already there is moaning about the character’s skin tone being too light. In the midst of all this talk of whitewashing characters, I just want to roll my eyes. I thrive on complexity and get really irritable (and belligerent) when people try to box me in.

I want to nip this in the bud right now.

I think I deserve some respect and FAITH when it comes to book covers. Even this early in my writing career, I've fought valiantly in several battles.

That said, THERE IS A REASON the woman on the cover of Who Fears Death is light-skinned- Onyesonwu is of mixed race. And THERE IS A REASON the girl on the cover of Akata Witch is light-skinned- she is albino.

This reminds me of early reactions to the subject of female circumcision in Who Fears Death. It's amazing how people assume before reading the books.

I tell stories. And I enjoy messing with sh...things. :-). I don’t stay put.

Let me give some history:

Zahrah the Windseeker was bought by editor Andrea Pinkney (Thank her for the existence of this first cover. She pushed hard to make it happen). This is the full illustration:

by illustrator Amanda Hall

Here is the paperback cover. When they showed it to me, I was deeply annoyed with the wisps of straightened hair in this image. My character had dada hair, for goodness sake (basically dreadlocks. I'm not too fond of the word "dreadlocks" because such hair is in no way "dreadful". However, I occasionally use it for the sake of clarity).

But the image was what it was (Apparently, there are very very few stock images of black women with natural hair. It's problematic as heck). I had them tint the hair green, so it looks more like plants or cloth. I also had them darken her skin tone. Note, this was my first novel. It was not easy to ask for all this, but I did:

Zahrah lived in another world that was like a technologically advanced Nigeria. She looked West African. My editor and I were determined that she'd look this way on the cover. Here is another interpretation of Zahrah:

by Illustrator John Jennings

Two years later came The Shadow Speaker. The main character, Ejii, was half Igbo and half -Woddabe. She was West African-looking with cat-like shadow speaker eyes and a shaved head.

This is the first version:

My agent and I were quite upset. We voiced our concerns (This was only my 2nd novel. Again, it was not easy to speak up. But I did. This issue was that important to me). The designers darkened her up.

The second Version:

Not good enough, we said. They made changes. This is the final version:

Ejii didn’t have locks (her head was shaved), but I was fine with that. Locks were better than straight hair and apparently it was too difficult to give her a shaved head.

Then came Who Fears Death this year:

The woman in the picture is light-skinned BECAUSE the main character Onyesonwu is part Okeke (a West African looking people) and Nuru (a Middle Eastern looking people). In this world, those born of one Okeke parent and one Nuru parent do not look like a combination of the two. They look like “desert spirits”-the color of sand, like neither. The woman on the cover reflects this.

And now comes my forthcoming Akata Witch.

Years ago, I spent a week with the daughter of one of my mother’s friends when they visited from Nigeria. This girl was nine-years-old and had a wonderfully strong personality. :-) And she happened to be albino. She was paler than most white people and had blonde hair, yet she was as Igbo and nappy-haired as anyone in her family.

She loved to make jokes and one day she just went off on a diatribe about the discrimination she experienced in Nigeria because she was albino. After that week, I knew I’d write about her. I’d been kicking around an idea about Nigerian kids and magic and she fit right into the story.

So you see, I am writing characters NOT ideas. My characters are reflected on my covers, not my ideas about blackness (heh, not directly, at least). Read my stories and my ideas about blackness are clear. If I my character is dark, then she is dark on the cover. If she is light, then she is light.

Lastly, with each cover, I have had a say. And my publishers (illustrators and designers, too!) have been very cooperative, understanding and enlightened. I can’t work with people who do not possess these qualities. You won't catch me agreeing to a whitewashed cover. So yes, go ahead and hold me to high standards; I certainly do. But if you don’t understand something I do, give me the benefit of the doubt...and READ the story! Then come back to me and we shall discuss.

Never Unmask a Masquerade

2010-07-17T21:45:00.020-05:00

*Please click open a new tab and listen to this music as you read*
When my sister and I were kids, we were harassed by spirits. These times were during our trips to Nigeria, especially at Christmastime. Masquerades. Physical manifestations of the spirits and ancestors. Think slightly smaller but equally noisy versions of these ones:

In my father’s village of Arondizuogu, they would chase us down the road. We’d sprint like crazy. It was one of many times where my siblings and I were lucky to be fast runners.
Sometimes, the masquerades would see us and hide behind the concrete wall that surrounded my uncle’s house. Then they’d jump out as we came around it. Oh, and they carried whips. If we made it to the house (my parents have a house in the village), we were safe. Once, we took a wrong turn, were cornered and summarily whipped hard enough to draw blood.
It was terrifying but we were kids, so the terror was delicious. It eventually became a sort of game. After all, the spirits had been chasing us for years and they’d only caught us once. Even back then, I knew that they were harassing us because we were American-born and probably because we were girls (my brother Emezie was a baby at the time, so he missed all this).
Years later, I saw the biggest masquerade yet. And it was right here in the United States, at an Igbo wedding. Its wide body was heavy with dried grass, raffia and cloth. It was tall enough to graze the ceiling. Some men played the drums and flute to keep it dancing. It was an Mgbadike. Two men held it from the audience with a thick rope. It would lunge at especially women and the women would scream and flee to the other side of the room. I remember I was wearing uncomfortable high heels. My balance is already bad (long story…see here), so I couldn’t flee as fast as the other women.
It lunged at me and get right in my face. My heart started slamming in my chest. But I was fascinated, too. From a young age, I’d always wanted to know the secrets of masquerades. I still do. If you are Nigerian and reading this, you know that this would be an abomination. A woman has no business seeking such secrets.
For years, I have asked and asked Nigerian male friends, uncles, granduncles, male elders for details. Never have I gotten an ounce of information. Of course, this only increases my hunger for this forbidden knowledge. One day I will succeed. And then as soon as the information falls on my female ears (for such things are certainly NOT written down), the sky will turn black, plants will grow underground and babies will speak like old men.
I’m kidding. Maybe.
In my latest novel, Who Fears Death, the main character Onyesonwu seeks magical information that is also barred from her because she is female. Hmm, I wonder where that part of the story came from. *Smile*.
*
Masquerades move in and out of Who Fears Death. They appear twice in physical form. However, throughout the story, they watch Onyesonwu from the spirit world. Her activities are of great interest these beings.
I remember hearing masquerade flute music as I wrote Who Fears Death, especially with this particular scene:
"It stood directly before our tent, tall as a middle-aged tree. Wide as three tents. A masquerade, a spirit from the wilderness. …This one stood still as a stone. It was made of tightly packed dead wet leaves and thousands of protruding metal spikes. It had a wooden head with a frowning face carved into it. Thick white smoke dribbled from the top.”
When I wrote this, a specific masquerade came to mind. I’d seen it in the television series of “Things Fall Apart”. It appeared during one of the film’s most pivotal scenes. A masquerade has been unmasked by an Igbo man who’d recently been converted to Christianity. To unmask a masquerade in public is blasphemy in Igbo culture. When the elders of Umuofia learn of the incident, the ancestors and spirits are called upon to handle the situation. And this is when the huge masquerade shows up. Miraculously, I found this scene on youtube (the masquerade I speak of is at 4:45 minutes):

This scene is priceless for many reasons. Aside from presenting a powerful masquerade that in many ways personified the soul of Umuofia (the village in the story that will eventually “fall apart” under the manipulations of European Christian/colonists), it shows masquerades tearing down a colonial symbol. There is great rage in this scene. Ok, so the scene also cracks me up every time I watch it. The idea of the priest trying to negotiate with “spirits” is priceless.

The Village Voice reviews Who Fears Death. :-D!!

2010-07-14T07:08:00.008-05:00

This review rocked:

Who Fears Death Conjures a Different Kind of Wizard: Nnedi Okorafor steers clear of J.K. Rowling

By Carol Cooper

Tuesday, Jul 13, 2010

http://www.villagevoice.com/2010-07-13/books/who-fears-death-conjures-a-different-kind-of-wizard

In the 1970s, black fantasist Octavia Butler named the central protagonist in her "Patternist" series after an Igbo goddess. Back then, a publishing industry resistant to non-white characters (and writers) in genre fiction would never have predicted that, today, an American daughter of Igbo immigrants would publish critically acclaimed speculative fiction using Igbo elements and philosophical borrowings from the folklore of Central Asia, India, and the Middle East.

Superficially, Nnedi Okorafor's Who Fears Death is built around fantasy literature's most popular cliché: the mysterious, predestined child messiah. She pushes that cliché into psychologically (and physiologically) messier territory. The result of rape, a girl wizard named Onyesonwu hopes to murder the racist warlord who sired her. UnlikeHarry Potter, Onye's style of magic is Nomadic Shaman, not Medieval Mage. So not only does the novel read more like Carlos Castaneda than J.K. Rowling when describing Onye's magical apprenticeship, this angry young sorceress validates every patriarchal fear of powerful women. In the process of constructing this unabashedly neofeminist fable, Okorafor critiques Africa's endemic poverty, gender prejudices, female circumcision, and the twin plagues of Islamic and Christian fundamentalism.

It's an ambitious agenda for a single book, particularly since Okorafor also reworked the prose style of her award-winning teen fiction to better suit this, her first adult novel. But with few exceptions, it all comes together beautifully. Her pacing is tight. Her expository sections sing like poetry. Descriptions of paranormal people and battles are disturbingly vivid and palpable. But most crucial to the book's success is how the author slowly transforms Onye's pursuit of her rapist father from a personal vendetta to a struggle to transform the social systems that created him. SF and fantasy already claim many classic tales that are thinly veiled allegories of the Holocaust, the Stalinist purges, even China's "cultural revolution." So little wonder that Okorafor appropriated the narrative strategies and loopholes of speculative fiction to tell a cautionary tale inspired by the more recent political horrors of Biafra, Rwanda, and Darfur.

The Witch Strikes Back

2010-06-25T20:42:00.028-05:00

I'm going to nip this in the bud right now.

Let me preface by saying that most Africans have been very supportive of my work. Even one of my favorite authors, the legendary Ngugi wa Thiong’o, has been cheering for me from that lofty pedestal reserved for Great African writers. All this support is priceless to me. I send love right back to you all.

Nonetheless, since winning the Wole Soyinka Prize for my first novel, Zahrah the Windseeker, I continue to receive chastising emails from Africans (in this case, my definition of “African” is: African folk who currently live on or have recently immigrated from the African continent) who have a problem with what I write, the juju I play with within my stories (most of which is based on some real stuff), the cultures I mix, and the traditions I often address.

This year, I’ve been called a witch (amusu!), a heathen, some Ghanaian guy said that he was sure I was possessed by something evil and ungodly. One Nigerian guy (whom I think was a priest or something) said something like, “Where is your husband? I need to speak to him immediately! Or have you eaten him? Witch!” Can you imagine?!

Of late, the focus has been on the fact that I addressed female circusison in Who Fears Death. It started at my first book signing in Michigan (which I blogged about earlier this month), but it's continued with angry emails from others who hear about the book.

Since the anniversary of Michael Jackson’s death is on my mind right now, a scene from Thriller comes to mind. Remember the part where he’s changed into a werewolf and dramatically cries, “GO AWAY!!! ARGH!!!!” I can relate.

If you don't recall, here's the video. The moment I speak of is at 2:25 minutes.

Who Fears Death is a story about a woman who has to fight to be what she is. There is a herd comprised of camels, hawks, antelopes and wild dogs. There’s a great masquerade with a sick sense of humor and its raffia is laden with dangerous needles. There is a trickster house. There's a love story. And there are dragons...sort of. Who Fears Death looks reality right in the face but it’s not some simpleminded diatribe against female circumcision and African cultures as a whole. THAT would be boring.

Before I continue, let me stop calling it “female circumcision”. This word implies that it is the equivalent of male circumcision. It is certainly is not. The equivalent for men/boys would be cutting off the entire penis but saving a sperm sample for the sake of procreation. And along with the man not fully enjoying sex, have him experience pain during sex, too. Yeah, that’s about the right. “Female genital mutilation” works as a better phrase but some feel this is a biased way of referring to it. So let’s go with “female genital cutting”. For those unclear on the practice, see here. It is practiced in many parts of Africa and the Middle East. It’s also performed in the West.

In my novel, Who Fears Death, there is a scene where some girls are…cut. In this future world, the mythos behind the practice has been forgotten but a girl is still expected to have the cliterectomy done. If it is not done, then the girl is not considered marriageable. Still, no girl is forced. It is her choice to have it done. ;-). Clean medical tools are used and the girls receive proper medical care afterwards. In other words, in this African future, girls do not die from this practice as they do today. The scene strips the practice down to exactly what it is.

Back in the early stages of this novel, I workshopped this scene in my novel writing class during my PhD program. My class was all white, from what I recall. After reading it, two women became particularly upset with me. During the critque, I sat there quiet as they accused me of defending female genital cutting. I guess they wanted me to demonize the culture and shout “Barbaric! Barbaric people! Look at what they are doing to their girls and women!” Over the years, the circumcision scene in Who Fears Death has not changed much. So now here I am being accused of the opposite, publically disrespecting traditional African culture.

Some points:

1. In many cultures of the world, women damage themselves in order to appeal to men (which translates to “finding a mate”). And parents damage their girls to make them marriageable. In American society, much of this “mutilation” is psychological (though plenty is physical) but no less painful or harmful. However, plenty of people are writing about all this. I don’t feel enough are writing about female genital cutting.

2. I am Igbo. And though I’ve been lucky to have no family members scarred by the practice (as far as I know, at least), female genital cutting is traditionally practiced amongst the Igbos, though it is on its way out (See more on that here). In this way, the issue is rather close to me.

3. I am a very proud of my Igbo-ness. However, culture is alive and it is fluid. It is not made of stone nor is it absolute. Some traditions/practices will be discarded and some will be added, but the culture still remains what it is. It is like a shape-shifting octopus that can lose a tentacle but still remain a shape-shifting octopus (yes, that image is meant to be complicated). Just because I believe that aspects of my culture are problematic does not mean I am “betraying” my people by pointing out those problems.

Twice now, I’ve been asked (once at my book signing and once in a rather angry email) if I’d ever been to a circumcision ceremony in the Middle East or Africa. At the book signing it was implied, in the email it was flat out declared, that if I had not been present at one of these ceremonies, then I had no right to speak on the issue.

First of all, I speak about what I choose to speak about. Let’s see you try to stop me. Secondly, if writers only wrote about what they’d experienced, then few people would write about wizards and unicorns. Thirdly, let’s be honest here, you can lace the practice of female genital cutting with whatever elaborate stories, myths and traditions you want. What it all boils down to (and I believe the creators of this practice KNEW this even a thousand years ago) is the removal of a woman’s ability to properly enjoy the act of sex. Again, this is about the control and suppression of women. And I do NOT have to be right there between a little helpless girl’s legs to know this to be true.

I understand why one would be defensive about the way African cultures and practices are portrayed. One need only look at the media and the way Africa is presented within it. One need only take a glance at the point of view of world history. But don’t hate the messenger, hate the message. I’ve got Africa’s back. Always. First and foremost. So please, with all due respect, back off. And again I say, read the book. It’s a great story, if I do say so myself.

I leave you all with some words from another of my idols, Nobel Laureate Wole Soyinka. This isn’t directly on the topic but it’s thought provoking:

WHO FEARS DEATH an "editor's pick" in Ebony Magazine

2010-06-16T09:48:00.000-05:00

Lots going on these days but this review was special to me in that I doubt any book published by DAW has ever been reviewed in Ebony Magazine. That's just changed and I love the idea that I had something to do with that. I hope I'm the first of many.

Here's the review. See it for yourself in stores now. :-). It's the issue with Prince on the cover.

Ebony Magazine

Page 48, July 2010

The lesson from my 1st Who Fears Death book-signing:Africans NEED sf & fantasy:

2010-06-02T22:39:00.023-05:00

Just returned from my first Who Fears Death book signing (not including Wiscon) at Schuler Books & Music in Lansing, MI. Wow...I need to process it. There was a wonderful turnout! And it was wonderfully organized.

Nevertheless, during the question and answer portion of it, I was basically accosted by ironically my own people, African academics (who had NOT read the book).

Apparently, it's a no no to mix African cultures in a future Africa. When I reiterated that Who Fears Death is a mix of traditional African Lit, science fiction, and fantasy of a magical realist persuasion, there was more harrumphing and scowling.

Oh and I'm supposed write a female circumcision scene that happens in the future exactly like how it would happen in the present. I must write "nonfiction fiction" instead of "realism-inspired/realism-infused/haunted fiction". I must replicate Things Fall Apart for the millionth and one time (Of course, if I tried to do this, I'd have also been attacked because I'm an "Americanized Nigerian" to them and I therefore would have no business attempting such a feate).

Oh and apparently, because I've never witnessed a female circumcision ceremony, I can't realistically write about it (they ignored the fact that I know women who've been circumcised and have discussed it with them. And that Nawal El Saadawi wrote a wonderful quote for the book. And unlike them, she HAD read the book).

These academics decided all this without having read Who Fears Death. Interesting.

The bookstore promotions manager Whitney Spotts said that she was reminded of the way Salman Rushdie was treated at many of his book-signings (because he was writing magical realism). Ha ha, I can only hope.

I am again reminded of why I feel Africa and Africans (on the continent and those living abroad) need African science fiction and fantasy. The envelope needs to be shoved. The mold needs to be crushed. There are many ways to write outside the box.

I'll probably have to say this many times in the coming months (I had to say it to a bookseller months ago who was disturbed by the beginning of the book. She went on to read it and love it): With Who Fears Death, I knew the poison I was dabbling in, the spirits and ghosts I was communing with, the history and cultures I was poking...I was ready to write this book; I knew what I was doing. Trust me.

The upside was that these professors bought copies of the book. I really hope they read it.

Aside from all this, the signing was superb. :-). It really was quite a memorable experience.

As Popeye likes to say, "I am what I am." And I write what I write. Who Fears Death is a hybrid of so many things. To African academics who ruffle their feathers at this idea, I say, "Relax, read and enjoy."

Neth Space Reviews gives Who Fears Death 9/10

2010-05-25T11:36:00.003-05:00

This is the first in-depth review of Who Fears Death that I've seen. I couldn't agree with him more about the fact that Who Fears Death both fits in no category and fits in many. Ha ha, that's the story of my life. Anyway, here's the review. It's a good one. :-)

Neth Space

Review of Who Fears Death by Nnedi Okorafor

Sometimes a book can’t be easily classified, and that can be a good thing. Who Fears Death by Nnedi Okorafor (Book Depository, Powell’s Books, Indiebound), her first novel aimed squarely at an adult audience, is one such book.

Is it urban fantasy? Well no, it’s set in mostly rural setting, but certainly shares some characteristics. Is it epic fantasy? There is a quest, there is a group undertaking said quest, there are sorcerers and the equivalent of a dark lord, but few who read Who Fears Death would classify it as epic fantasy. Is it World Fantasy? Well, it isn’t the usual Western fantasy with its European and/or American roots – but World Fantasy is a pretty meaningless term and equally unclassifiable.

African Fantasy? The setting is decidedly African and the folklore, customs and conflicts are all rooted in Africa, but does any book deserve to be geographically limited? Is it Feminist Fantasy? Issues of the rights of women lie at the heart of this novel, but should it be so pigeon-holed? How about YA? Who Fears Death is a coming-of-age story, full of teen-angst, certainty and uncertainty, though its heavy weight and timelessness appeal equally to adults. Is it near-future science fiction? Many elements of Who Fears Death fit the near-future sci-fi model, but there is magic and sorcery, which can only mean fantasy, right?

Is it post-apocalyptic fantasy? Who Fears Death has the feel of taking place after a collapse of modern society as we know it, but even this fails to capture the book and all its facets. Really, I could keep going, but I think the point is made. Who Fears Death is all and none of these classifications, and it’s all the more wonderful for it.

Read the rest here.

The writing of Who Fears Death

2010-05-14T19:29:00.008-05:00

This is an essay I wrote that describes the genesis of my forthcoming novel Who Fears Death. There is so much to this particular novel, I'm glad I was given the space to explain some of it:

“My life fell apart when I was sixteen. Papa died.”

Those are the opening lines of Who Fears Death. I remember when I wrote them. I was thinking of Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart. I was thinking of change, cultural shift, chaos. Okonkwo’s death. And my own father’s very recent death. Yeah, all that in those two lines.

In more ways than one, the opening scene of Who Fears Death, titled “My Father’s Face”, was the beginning of it all. Originally, it was not the beginning of the novel. This scene takes place well into the story when my main character Onyesonwu is sixteen and has been through so much. The original beginning was when Onyesonwu was five years old and happy, living with her mother in the desert. Nevertheless, “My Father’s Face” was the first scene I wrote.

Though my stories tend to be mostly linear, I’m a non-linear writer. I’ll write the middle, then the ending, then the beginning and kind of jump around until I’m done. Then I’ll tie all the scenes together and neaten it up. Nevertheless, when Who Fears Death was all said and done, I wasn’t surprised that “My Father’s Face” turned out to be the beginning of the actual book.

I started writing Who Fears Death just after my father passed in 2004. I was very very close to my father and writing was my way of staying sane. I based “My Father’s Face” on a moment I experienced at my father’s wake when everyone had cleared out of the room and I found myself alone with his body.

I was kneeling there looking at his face, thinking how much it no longer looked like him and how terrible that was. My morbid thoughts were driving me into deeper despair. Then suddenly I felt an energy move though me. This energy felt highly destructive, as if it could bring down the entire building. Almost all the details in the scene I went on to write were true, I felt them…well, up to the part where Onyesonwu makes her father’s body breath.

As soon as I wrote that scene, everything else rushed at me. My father’s passing caused me to think about death, fear, the unknown, sacrifice, destiny and cosmic trickery. Only a week or so after my father’s passing, I read the Washington Post article, We Want to Make a Light Baby: Arab Militiamen in Sudan Said to Use Rape as Weapon of Ethnic Cleansing by Emily Wax. I was absolutely infuriated. The storytelling spider in my head started weaving faster. I realized that this article was showing me why the people in my story’s town disliked Onyesonwu and why she was so troubled.

My mother, my sister Ifeoma and my brother Emezie flew with my father’s body back to Nigeria for his burial. When they returned, I learned through my siblings about the way widows were treated within Igbo custom, even the ones with PhDs…like my mother. I was again infuriated. And I was reminded yet again of why I was a feminist.

Read the rest here, where it is posted on the novel's Amazon page (scroll down the page).

A hilarious interview

2010-04-15T15:26:00.002-05:00

I just found this interview from News Star Newspaper. If I recall correctly, this was literally RIGHT after I won the Soyinka Award, so I'd just met Wole Soyinka and won $20,000. I was totally babbling. I'm not usually so forthcoming with this kind of information.

I’m in love with insects— Nnedi Okorafor, US-based Nigerian writer

Written by ADA DIKE

Friday, 19 March 2010 23:48

Nnedi Okorafor, a Nigerian-born culture and science fiction writer, lives in the United States of America. In this interview with ADA DIKE, Okorafor, a professor at Chicago State, talks about her passion for writing and other interesting issues

How long have you been writing?
My journey into writing is somehow a complicated history. This is because up until I was 19 years old, I thought I was going to be a doctor or an entomologist. In my second year in the college, I took a creed of writing class and that changed everything. I realised that I was good at it; I could tell stories and I enjoyed telling stories. And since then, I have never stopped writing.
My journey into writing is not long, compared to many writers I know. My father was a cardiovascular surgeon and my mother was a registered nurse and midwife. She also obtained a PhD in Health Administration. I come from a medical/scientific family and I grew up believing that I would be a veterinarian or an entomologist (I still maintain a fascination with creatures of the earth, especially insects and birds).
It was only in my second year in the college in 1994, after my boyfriend at the time read a short story I wrote and told me that I might do well in a creative writing course, that I actually realised that I was good at writing stories. At the end of my junior year, after finishing my third class in creative writing, I changed my major to Rhetoric (which was creative writing at my university). And I’ve been writing ever since.

I guess you must be doing great then?
Oh, yes! I am doing great and I am always busy. I have two novels coming out soon and one of them is my first adult novel. I am really pleased with it and it’s already getting some attention. I also wrote a script for a Nollywood director, Tchidi Chikere, which he plans to shoot in the near future. And, of course, I am a professor at Chicago State, which makes it hectic. So, life’s good. The Soyinka Prize was like a much-needed great big injection of good positive energy.

How many books have you published?
My first short fiction, a story called Uche, was published in 2000 by an international women’s magazine. The following year, Strange Horizons published my short story, The Palm Tree Bandit, which ended up receiving an honourable mention in The Year’s Best Horror and Fantasy (14th Ed)- it, thus, made it into Strange Horizon’s ‘Best of Anthology’ some years later. From that point on, I’ve had several short stories published and I have won in several writing contests. I’ve always been a better novel writer than a short story writer. Even when I started writing, I was a lot more attracted to stories that were novel- sized as opposed to shorter ones. So, all this time that I was getting short stories published, I was writing novels. Actually, many of my short stories came from the novels I was writing. Two stories from my novel won in some contests, one story has been shortlisted for a contest and two have been published in anthologies. Zahrah the Windseeker is my first published novel, but it was my fourth or fifth novel. In all, I have written 11 novels (all of them over 250 pages, the longest being over 500 pages). Most of the novels that I have written are adult novels. My other published novel is Ejii the Shadow Speaker and I currently have two others that publishers are looking at, one adult and one young adult. Almost all of my novels are in some way connected; they may take place in the same world and involve recurring characters or the relative of another novel’s main character. There’s always some interesting connection. I learnt that technique from reading Stephen King.
I have published two books. The third one is called Long Juju Man. I have written a minimum of 11 novels.

How do Nigerians perceive your works?
Well, I was born and raised in the United States. And thus, most of what I write have been published in the United States. Most of what I write take place in Nigeria or in a place like Nigeria. Since I was very young, my parents have been taking my siblings and me back to meet relatives and absorb whatever we could, culturally. Nigeria is very much my muse. Whenever I come home, by the time I go back, I have a new novel in my head. Another reason why Nigerians may not know of me is because I’m fairly new. I also think there’s more to it. I write a mix of fantasy and science fiction. And, at least, from what I’ve noticed, this is not a type of fiction that is well known in Nigeria. I don’t think there’s much science fiction and fantasy written from a Nigerian perspective. I hope to play a part in changing that; but for the moment, this seems to be the case.

How do you overcome challenges of putting words together to make a book or a novel?
I don’t have any problem because I have too many ideas.

How did you get the idea of writing about Long Juju Man?
My paternal uncle is a story-teller. He naturally tells stories. One day, he told us about long juju shrine and I got a story from there.

Where does your inspiration to write books and novels come from?
It comes from people, animals, things and creatures. The idea of my fourth novel came from when I was in the United States; we had a family friend who came to visit us from Nigeria. He had a nine-year-old daughter and I ended up being the one to stay with her for a while. She was a lively little girl and always had something to say. After that week, I knew I was going to write about her.

If you were not an author, what else would you have been?
I would have loved to be an entomologist because I love insects and you will find them in all my stories. Studies of insects or birds would have been my area.

What is your advice to other authors?
They should keep writing. Ben Okri once said, “It is best to write when you feel the need to write.” But I think that inspiration does not always come. Sometimes, you have to look for it. And then, you must always listen to other people.

Who really is Nnedi Okorafor?
I am from the United States of America. I am 35 years old. I have two Igbo parents from Isiekenesi in Imo State and they have been bringing me to Nigeria since I was very young, so that Nigeria will become a part of me. I am always the one observing, recording and documenting everything that is going on in my family. Everyone knows that if you do something funny, Nnedi will write about it.

Do you speak Igbo language?
No, but I try.

Why?
It’s more difficult than you think when you are born and raised in the United States of America. My siblings and I have interest in understanding Igbo language.

Your dreadlocks are long and I wonder why you love to wear it.
I left my braids for too long and when I took them out, they were like this and I loved them. I have been carrying dreadlocks for about 15 years. They are not heavy, but comfortable, convenient and cheap hairstyle to maintain. I wash my dreadlocks, but my mother goes to the salon to wash her own. My sisters also have dreadlocks.

Are you married?
I am divorced, but I have a baby girl.

When do you intend to remarry?
Do you mean Nnedi of now or Nnedi of the future?

I mean Nnedi of today.
Nnedi of now has said no to marriage. But hopefully, Nnedi of the future may remarry.

What is your philosophy of life?
Be a good person; do unto others as you would want them to do unto you.

Who is your role model?
Wole Soyinka is my role model. His ideas are amazing to me. I also admire Octavia Butler, a black American science fiction writer. She started writing about science, fiction and magic realism before us. Ngugi Wa Thango, a Kenyan author, is also my role model.

How do you unwind?
I exercise a lot.

Do you have any fashion icon you admire?
Arita Badru; she is a singer. I like her fashion sense.

What kind of shoes do you wear?
I wear high-heeled shoes with thick soles. Comfort comes first because I like to move around. But it all depends on the occasion.

How do you define style?
I don’t wear brand names, but only buy things I like. It is a very individual thing. It’s something that fits everybody. For example, skinny jeans don’t fit everybody. Style is the person’s artistic expression.

Are you a formal dresser?
I am skinny, but I sometimes wear formal dresses.

What kind of fashion accessories do you cherish most?
I like cowry shells because they are beautiful, shiny and smooth.

Okorafor profiled in Publishers Weekly

2010-04-12T06:20:00.001-05:00

A Nigerian Sorceress Makes Her Way

By Mikki Kendall -- Publishers Weekly, 4/12/2010 12:00:00 AM

Nnedi Okorafor’s gentle demeanor is so disarming that it’s impossible not to relax in her company. The Chicago State University professor has a sweet smile, three graduate degrees, numerous awards and prize nominations for her writing, and a razor-sharp mind that is changing the face of speculative fiction. The latter soon becomes apparent when the discussion turns to genocide, rape, female circumcision, fantasy, and Nigerian culture.

Born in the U.S. to Nigerian immigrants, Okorafor, 36, grew up in the same suburb of Chicago where she now resides with her own daughter. As a child, she was mostly interested in sports and the sciences, dreaming of becoming an entomologist, but she was always fond of reading, and by age 12, she found her mind had been “corrupted by genius white male storytellers” like Stephen King and Clive Barker. “I was working my way through the library reading whatever caught my eye,” Okorafor recalls fondly. “I read a lot of books that I definitely had no business reading at that age.” A writing class in college sparked her creativity and while obtaining an M.A. in journalism and an M.A. and Ph.D. in English, Okorafor began to write the stories she always wanted to read.

Okorafor’s books feature the cultural and social touchstones of her youth: Nigeria, strong girls and women, and the strange, beautiful lives of plants and insects. The YA novel Zahrah the Windseeker (Houghton Mifflin, 2005), which won the Wole Soyinka Prize for Literature, is a classic magical quest set in a world in which Earth is a legend and everything from clothing to computers grows from seeds. In the Parallax Award–winning The Shadow Speaker, her second YA, a Muslim teen in West Africa must avert interplanetary war.

Okorafor’s first adult novel, Who Fears Death, which will be published in June by DAW Books, combines science fiction and fantasy in the story of Onyesonwu, a young sorceress making her way in a postapocalyptic future Saharan Africa where men use rape as a tool to eradicate a culture on the genetic level. “Who Fears Death addresses the push and pull in African culture that powerful women face when their culture has certain duties and beliefs that can stifle them,” Okorafor says.

As she channels the past, present, and future into one complex tale, Okorafor walks a fine line between sincere respect and unstinting examination of tradition: mixing futuristic technology with magic rooted in the beliefs of Nigerian, Tanzanian, and other African cultures, exploring why many women willingly practice female circumcision and see it as a necessary rite of passage even as others find it horrific. These somber themes seem a drastic departure from her previous work, but Okorafor refuses to gloss over the realities on which she builds her fiction. “What initially brought me Onyesonwu’s character,” she explains, “was reading a Washington Post news story: ' “We Want to Make a Light Baby”: Arab Militiamen in Sudan Said to Use Rape as Weapon of Ethnic Cleansing.’ I wondered what these children would be like, what would their struggles be, how would they survive, who would they grow up to be. And that’s when Onyesonwu came to me to tell her story.” Okorafor adds, “I am not trying to be shocking or exceedingly graphic. Onyesonwu’s story was told to me in just this way and she is not one to tell lies, embellish, or mince words.”

Okorafor’s upcoming projects include a YA novel that Penguin will publish in 2011, Akata Witch, with a focus on the tension between African-Americans and Africans as well as “deep, deep Nigerian witchcraft”; two screenplays in collaboration with award-winning Nigerian film director Tchidi Chikere; and a science fiction novella set in Nigeria. She also has plans for another adult novel. “I’ll know what that one is about when I start writing it,” Okorafor says. “When it comes, it’ll come like a tidal wave.”

Author Information

Mikki Kendall is an occasional adult and constant writer.

Publishers Weekly gives Who Fears Death a Starred Review

2010-04-05T17:30:00.006-05:00

Needless to say, I'm quite quite pleased, as are Zahrah and Ejii. :-)

Publishers Weekly, April 5, 2010

Who Fears Death Nnedi Okorafor. DAW, $24.95 (400p) ISBN 978-0-7564-0617-2

Scheduled for release June 5, 2010

Starred Review
Well-known for young adult novels (The Shadow Speaks; Zahrah the Windseeker), Okorafor sets this emotionally fraught tale in post apocalyptic Saharan Africa. The young sorceress Onyesonwu—whose name means “Who fears death?”—was born Ewu, bearing a mixture of her mother's features and those of the man who raped her mother and left her for dead in the desert. As Onyesonwu grows into her powers, it becomes clear that her fate is mingled with the fate of her people, the oppressed Okeke, and that to achieve her destiny, she must die. Okorafor examines a host of evils in her chillingly realistic tale—gender and racial inequality share top billing, along with female genital mutilation and complacency in the face of destructive tradition—and winds these disparate concepts together into a fantastical, magical blend of grand storytelling. (June)

Who is African? What is African SF? Says who?

2010-03-17T17:36:00.009-05:00

In light of recent discussions about African science fiction and the question of "Who is African", I felt the need to say a few things. Here are the things I said:

Can you define African Science Fiction?

by Nnedi Okorafor

If I compiled bits of my recent phone discussions with Nollywood film director Tchidi Chikere on African science fiction, I think it would address many discussions of the topic quite well. It would go like this:

“Hello? Tee? Can you hear me? It’s Nnedi.”
“What?”
“Can you…”
“Hello?”
“Hello??”
“Hello? Nnedi, are you there?”
“Yeah, Tee, I’m here. I think this connection is bad.”
“Nnedi, how are you? I’m on location. It’s f*cking hot! I can barely hear you.”
“Oh.”
“We’re all going to die out here. It’s so hot! You wouldn’t believe it.”
“Yes, Tee but I wanted…”
“You want to know what science fiction is? An air conditioner in Nigeria that is quiet enough to run when I’m filming!”
“Ha ha ha ha ha!”
“Look, Nnedi, Nkemdili, dear, we’ll talk later. Carry your cell with you. Gotta shoot this scene…ACTION!”
*Click*

You see how science fiction from an African perspective might differ from science fiction from a Western perspective even when the science fiction is SET in Africa? Technology occupies a different space.

For more on the question of SF and Africa, check out my essay, Is Africa Ready for Science Fiction?

However, there is one thing that has bubbled to the surface since then which I feel the need to address and that is the question of “Who is African?” Walk with me and let me tell you a story…

Back when I was an undergrad at the University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana, there was chaos over this very question. I was in my junior year. This was about a year after I had written my first short story. My sister (who was a law student at the University of Illinois) and I were members of the African Student Association (a.k.a. the ASO).

The controversy began when someone on the executive board decided that he wanted to make the ASO constitution more… specific. The change that got people angry was the part that said that the only people who could vote in the ASO were “real Africans”. Who was a “real African”? Well, according to this executive, those who had been born in Africa or those who had lived in Africa for at least ten years.

Read the rest of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America website here.

Also, I managed to locate an essay I wrote for the Daily Illini back in 1995, I believe, addressing the same issue and the same incident but from a slightly different angle. As I've said, I've been dealing with this issue for a long time.

I wrote this a long time ago, so please forgive how it totally goes off topic in the last portion and how the title has little to do with the bulk of the essay, ha ha.

Hopefully you can read it as I have no electronic version of it. Right click on the image and open it in a new tab or window to see it in full.

Asunder: A Love Story

2010-02-14T07:12:00.009-06:00

illustration from my short story, "Windseekers"

This short story is the only "love story" I've ever written.

No particular individual inspired it. It's really more my personal musings and ideas about love...and just me weaving a narrative. As usual, it's strange tale, but I think the themes are universal-ish, sort of, maybe.

"Asunder" is also part of a larger unfinished novel I wrote titled Nisbisi's Script (of the many novels I've written, this is the only one I have not finished ...yet. It remains about four fifths complete. I'll finish it. Ha ha).

"Asunder" was published in African Writer some years ago before I was smart enough to drop "mbachu" from my last name (a.k.a. the time I thought love was more words than actions. I've since learned better). Enjoy and Happy Valentine's Day.

ASUNDER

by Nnedi Okorafor

Nothing is new.

Everything has happened before and will happen again. You will be another person in another time in another place like this with this same choice to make. Let me tell you about yourself many lives ago, when you had this choice to make, the same odd and unlikely lesson to learn. This time your name was Nourbese and your dilemma was with your husband, Osaze.

Love was easy for you to give, especially to Osaze, who was the one you were meant to be with. Everyone in your village knew this, so when you two decided to get married at the age of fifteen, no one objected. Both of you were an oddity in your village but not because you were anything so amazing, genius or unique. Actually both of you were fairly normal children…well, except for the exceptional love that existed between you two from the day you met.

You and Osaze met five years before. During the festival of the sun, the day when the sun rose the highest and hung the longest. It was a wonderful day because there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. The air smelled sweet with the scent of budding lilac flowers. The land you lived in does not matter. It was a place very far from here with dry sandy grounds and gnarled wide growing ancient trees. The people there wore long flowing garments that kept the body cool. And their lives revolved around both the sun and the large variety of flowers that grew year-round in the dry heat...

Read the rest of "Asunder" here: http://www.african-writing.com/mbachu.htm

The Shadow Speaker wins Parallax Award

2010-01-05T19:30:00.014-06:00

I'm pleased to announce that my novel The Shadow Speaker has won a Carl Brandon Parallax Award.

Here is the full list:
2007 Parallax Award-The Shadow Speaker by Nnedi Okorafor
2007 Kindred Award-From the Notebooks of Doctor Brain by Minister Faust
2006 Parallax Award-Mindscape by Andrea Hairston

Praise for The Shadow Speaker:

...Okorafor’s imagination is stunning.
-- The New York Times

THE SHADOW SPEAKER is wonderful, highly original stuff, episode after amazing episode, full of color, life and death. The people and the places in the Shadow Speaker all feel so real. Nnedi also deals head-on with the fact that power and pain are closely linked, as are magic and blood. I think this book is MARVELOUS.
-- Diana Wynne Jones, author of Howl's Moving Castle, Dark Lord of Derkholm, and the Chronicles of Chrestomanci

There's more vivid imagination in a page of THE SHADOW SPEAKER than in whole volumes of ordinary fantasy epics.
-- Ursula K. Le Guin, author of the classic Earthsea series, The Dispossessed, The Left Hand of Darkness, The Lathe of Heaven, and many more

*AN NAACP IMAGE AWARD NOMINEE*

*FINALIST FOR THE ANDRE NORTON AWARD*

*FINALIST FOR THE 2008 ESSENCE MAGAZINE LITERARY AWARD*

*A TIPTREE HONOR BOOK*

*A 2008 AMELIA BLOOMER PROJECT LIST BOOK*

*FINALIST FOR THE GOLDEN DUCK AWARD*

*A WINTER 2007/2008 BOOKSENSE PICK*

*A CCBC CHOICE FOR 2008*

*A LOCUS MAGAZINE RECOMMENDED BOOK*

My Review of Avatar

2009-12-21T06:10:00.007-06:00

Avatar was f*cking awesome (excuse my language, but in this case it was require).

The main characters rocked (diverse and believable), the creatures and plants were stupendous (LOVED THEM!!!), the world was amazing, the plot was compelling (who cares if there were a few holes?), the technology kicked ass, the special effects were breathtaking, the budget must have been gargantuan.

Avatar contained 99% of everything I love about film, and stories in general. And if you know my work, you know that I love lush organic settings highly populated with strange flora and fauna. The reason I even went to see it was because people kept telling me that parts of it reminded them of Zahrah the Windseeker. I saw exactly what they meant (especially when the main characters first enter the jungle). This film was after my own heart.

Go see it many times (you must see it in theaters at least once). Then go buy it on DVD.

The Princess and the Frog: Had Soul But Needed to Consult Its Ancestors

2009-12-16T22:13:00.020-06:00

I’m a fan of Disney.

Plus my novel The Shadow Speaker is published by Disney and I’m writing a chapter book for the Disney Fairies Series titled Iridessa and the Fire-Bellied Dragon Frog. So yes, I guess I can say that I’m also on the Disney Team. Also, New Orleans is my favorite American city.

All that said, I’m not going to go easy on this film. I like to see things done correctly. And I refuse to use the argument of “Well, it has to make money” as an excuse to let a film’s stupidity slide (as was the excuse given to me multiple times to defend casting Morgan Freedman as Nelson Mandela in Invictus and now Jennifer Hudson as Winnie Mandela in a forthcoming film...Gimme a break.).

Ok, so…

I really liked The Princess and the Frog. Films go through so much just to be made and usually they lose their souls along the way. Despite some serious flaws, this one had a shining soul in more ways than one.

**SPOILER ALERT**

Though great for kids (who this film was primarily for), I don’t really care for fairy tales. I have a hard time submerging myself in them. I mean…fairy tales are, well, fairy tales. Nevertheless I was able to play along with this one. Tiana was cute and funny. What I appreciated most about her was that she was a real go getter; a pretty good female character for girls (and boys).

I thought the musical numbers were great. But then again, I LOVE musicals; nothing like having characters spontaneously burst into song...especially great songs. :-). The animation was stupendous. 2D animation is where the real art is, in my most humble opinion. When done with love, care, and time, it is strong strong juju. This film was gorgeous. I hope this is not the last.

The colorful characters were what made the film for me. I love a story with a nice interesting cast and I enjoy talking animals…especially when they’re a little, ah, crazy. Tiana’s childhood friend Charlotte was hilarious and super sweet from beginning to end. If the film had to have a white young girl character woven into the central plot (I’m just citing the obvious. Can't make the film too black, right. Who are the little white girls going to relate to? I'm being sarcastic. Charlotte's purpose was clear to me, albeit unnecessary, in my opinion...nothing wrong with an all black cast that is for everyone)...anyway, Charlotte was cool. I appreciated her as a friend of Tiana with her own goals and personality. My daughter Anya thought she was great, too.

Raymond the Creole Firefly was absolutely precious with his huge glowing butt (hmm, lots of butt jokes in this film) and irrational love for Evangeline the evening star. And his people were equally precious. Louis the jazz-singing gator had me laughing extremely hard. His facial expressions were priceless. The “swamp folk” who initially caught Tiana and Naveen…ha ha ha! I know it was stereotype but I felt the film was very aware of this fact, too, and they were using it well.

I was pleased to also see that the film took chances. To have two characters fall in love while in the bodies of frogs, while thinking that they would never be human again- that’s quite a powerful message. It speaks of a type of love that is rarely spoken to in Hollywood films: Spiritual love, love that transcends physical beauty (especially when it comes to a woman’s body). I think that’s a Disney first in the “Princess” series. Again, an excellent lesson for the kiddies (and adults!).

Now, I could play devil’s advocate and say, “Of course, beauty is not an issue as soon as the princess is black.” Yeah, I can say that. Yeah. Hmm…anyway…Also, if this were back in the day, Charlotte wouldn’t have actually kissed Naveen the Frog at the end. Again, it was implied that love was not a physical thing. That was unexpected and cool.

Lastly, and most importantly, it was nice to see a black culture celebrated. When it came to New Orleans culture, aside from Voodoo (will get to that shortly), it seemed that someone did his or her research. The landscape, the nature, the food, the local culture, the people, the accents, the variety of characters were all very New Orleans. And it was nice to have both the evil and good forces in the film (Dr. Facilier and Mama Odie) rooted in black culture.

Oh and let me add, that I appreciated how the film let us know that there was racism in this place without making the film be about racism.

The issues…

Voodoo

Yet again, Hollywood has reinforced the incorrect stereotype of Voodoo, Voudoun, Vodou, etc, being evil or bizarre. The evil parts came from Dr. Facilier. You saw glowing evil Veves and really creepy evil needle-brandishing Voodoo dolls. Aspects of Dr. Facilier were also obviously taken from the Voodoo loa Baron Samedi. It’s so reductive to stamp Baron Samedi as simply an evil force. In Voodoo, good and evil are part of the same coin, reflections of each other. The separating of them is more of a Christian concept. FYI- Voodoo is old and came from West Africa. It is not evil by defintion. And there are different kinds of Voodoo. Wikipedia, surprisingly, has a nice article on Louisiana Voodoo, which is different from Haitian Voodoo , all of which are rooted in West African Voudoun. Please, educate yourself if this is news to you!

The Ancestors:

I was most appalled to see the African ancestors portrayed as evil and satanic. That was jarring and disturbing. I have such masks hung all over my house that I bought in Nigeria. They resemble the ones that sneered, scowled and eventually swallowed Dr. Facilier.

It further annoyed me that it was Mama Odie , who was associated with Christianity (yes, yes, I know of the influence of Christianity on Voodoo...my point is why did the Christian stuff pop up only with her and not Dr. Facilier? Why not have it come up with just Dr. Facilier? The answer is obvious). Mama Odie's song was basically a gospel tune and at the end of it she’s bathed in "glorious" church-like light. Cruel, selfish imposing Black African magic pitted against the kind, merely suggesting, “white” Christianity-tinged magic...didn't like that. Funny that Dr. Facilier was blue-eyed and rather Creole-looking and Mama Odie was just black. Maybe that was an attempt to spice up the cliché, but a cliché it still was.

The good thing, however, is that my 6-year-old daughter was absolutely delighted by all things that had to do with Dr. Facilier. During Dr. Facilier’s main song, when the ancestor masks were really getting down, she screamed, “MOMMY, THIS IS THE BEST PART OF THE MOVIE! I LOVE THIS!!!” Afterwards when I asked her why these parts were her favorite, she said, "I liked the bad magic man 'cause he had all the BEST magic. But I didn't like what happened to him." Heh, I agree.

Dr. Facilier was my favorite character in the film, too. His tall, spindly stature. His evil laughter. That VOICE! The big big music. I know exactly why Anya was delighted. There was mad energy in Dr. Facilier’s performance. Actor Keith David rocked it.

Disney has always had a way of doing terrible things while making them lovable. That song sung by the “happy slave” from Song of the South was so catchy! Hey, I sang it as a kid. I loved the Pocahontas film (especially the singing tree!), though the film was based on lies. I love the Little Mermaid, though the premise was horrible for young girls. That song “I wanna be like you oo oo!” was so racist but, I loved it as a kid and what great animation and creativity. It’s the genius of Disney. Sigh.

African Hair:

I’m tired of black women always having some version of “tamed” hair. I even hate saying “tamed”, as if natural African hair is wild and feral. Our true hair doesn’t move the way Tiana's hair moved in the film. Tiana obviously did the relaxer thing…or whatever they did before Madam C. J. Walker invented her poison. Blah, I’m bored with it. And I’m tired of the subtle but strong implication in the media (from blacks and everyone else) whispering that there is something ugly, wrong or unmanageable about unaltered African hair. Of course African hair would be all these things if we keep stupidly acting like the norm is Caucasian or Asian hai…ok I could go on a rant here but I will not. Sure, maybe most black women wore their hair like that in this place at this time, but why can’t the “why” of it ever be addressed? And why can’t an anomaly ever get the damn spotlight? Done.

The Marriage:

I understand this is part of the “Disney Princess” template but as always it made me uncomfortable, especially when I'm watching with my daughter. I’ve never liked films that end with marriage. As if there’s nothing else after marriage (like divorce, ha ha), as if there’s nothing interesting after people get married, as if the adventure is over. And, hmm, Tiana returned to human form after becoming a “wife”. *Frown* And I’ve never liked the “Man and wife” phrase…as if the man gets to remain who he is and the woman becomes a “wife” (and we know what that means). In this case, they even said “frog and wife”. Whatever.

The Color Issue and Subtle Things:

As expected, the “female lighter than man” colorism issue was there. Look at her mother’s shade compared to her father’s. This may seem like a small issue, but it’s huge and terrible for women of darker complexions in many ways. You see this issue in almost every cartoon. I wish it would stop.

Then there’s the gender issue with when Tiana and Naveen were frogs. She had to still have a feminine shape and be smaller than Naveen. Aren’t female bullfrogs larger than the males? I guess children are too stupid to know the difference between characters without these blunt gendered markers. Yeah, that’s it. *Eyes roll*.

All in all, this film is worth seeing and worth buying when it comes out on DVD. It was an ambitious musical and visual spectacle that I really enjoyed. And it had people of color at its center, hurrah!

Go see the Princess and the Frog and bring your kids or someone else's kids. It's good for everyone. Just be ready to do a little explaining.

Oh and I just heard, Roy Edward Disney, the nephew of Walt Disney, passed yesterday. :-(.
May he rest in peace.

A few updates…

2009-12-03T15:00:00.007-06:00

As my publisher (DAW Books) and I put the finishing touches on my forthcoming novel Who Fears Death (this is my first adult novel. It’s scheduled for release in June 2010), we’ve been getting some nice blurbs. So far, Peter Straub, Nawal El Saasawi, and David Anthony Durham have had some wonderful things to say my novel.

Secondly, I just sold a short story to young adult science fiction anthology published by Penguin Books titled, Life on Mars: Tales from the New Frontier. It’s edited by the most excellent Jonathan Strahan. It’s the first short story I’ve written involving aliens. Ha ha, I must thank the awful film District 9 for partially inspiring me.

Thirdly, I’ve been working with Nollywood director Tchidi Chikere on a script that he plans to shoot. More on that in the coming months.

Fourthly, I was interviewed by Clarkesworld Magazine. Read it here. I can't even remember what I said, so if I said some crazy sh*t...I take full responsibility (unlike the director of District 9...ok, I'll shut up about that now). Ha ha.

As the semester comes to an end (I’m a professor at Chicago State University), I’m beginning to turn fully to my creative works. Right now I’m juggling a bunch of projects including the editing of my forthcoming YA novel Akata Witch, fleshing out my forthcoming Disney Fairies chapter book, working on a middle grade fantasy novel, a graphic novel of Zahrah the Windseeker with illustrator John Jennings, and some other stuff.

Busy busy, but at least it keeps my mind off the cold weather- my stories tend to take place in warm climates. I wish I were travelling to Nigeria this December. Sigh. Maybe next year. While typing, I just looked out the window and saw my first snowflake. :-(. I’ve lived most of my life in Chicago and still I cannot stand the cold and detest snow.

Lastly, to relax, I plan to read Stephan King’s Under the Dome. I’ve got it sitting here right behind me, whispering in my ear, “Read me, reeeeaaaaad meeeeee!” And so I shall.

That’s all for now.

Nnedi

a nice review in Publisher's Weekly

2009-10-25T13:18:00.005-05:00

I was pleased to learn that my story, “On the Road”, received a nice mention in this week's Publisher’s Weekly. :-)! “On the Road” is one of 15 stories in Eclipse 3: New Science Fiction and Fantasy (edited by Jonathan Strahan). The anthology features some awesome authors including, Maurine McHugh, Peter S. Beagle, Ellen Kushner, Karen Joy Fowler, Elizabeth Bear, Paul Di Flippo, Pat Cadigan. It was just released on October 15th.

My story, “On the Road”, is the first horror story I’ve ever written. It scared the hell out of me when I wrote it; for about two weeks I was running to my front door whenever I returned home alone at night. I was afraid of the road. Things can happen on the road. At night.

The story is about a woman named Chioma who visits her grandmother during some strange rains. It’s set in present-day Nigeria. The opening scene (which is rather disturbing…my sister won’t read the story because of it) was actually inspired by an incident that happened in real life.

Here’s the Publisher’s Weekly review.

Eclipse Three Edited by Jonathan Strahan. Night Shade (www.nightshadebooks.com), $14.95 paper (304p) ISBN 978-1-59780-162-1

Australian editor Strahan continues his wide-ranging and occasionally controversial anthology series with 15 boundary-pushing stories. Pat Cadigan's “Don't Mention Madagascar” and Nnedi Okorafor's “On the Road” play wittily with reality and identity, and are exquisitely crafted. Maureen McHugh's “Useless Things” and Ellen Kushner's “Dolce Domum” are melancholy but no less fascinating. Jeffrey Ford's “The Coral Heart” nicely tweaks high fantasy tropes, while Peter S. Beagle's “Sleight of Hand” and Nicola Griffith's “It Takes Two” examine the nature and power of love from very different angles. The less successful efforts by Elizabeth Bear, Molly Gloss and Paul Di Filippo are still ambitious enough to be worth reading. Only Daniel Abraham's cliché-driven “The Pretender's Tourney” and Jane Yolen and Adam Stemple's predictable short-short “Mesopotamian Fire” seem really out of place. Despite the weak spots, Strahan continues to secure his place as a top anthologist. (Dec.)

My interview with Sapphire, author of the novel Push (which is now a film titled Precious)

2009-10-16T15:24:00.007-05:00

Way back in 1996, I interviewed Sapphire, the author of the controversial novel titled Push. The book has now been made into a film called Precious (“Precious” is the name of the story’s main character), directed by Lee Daniels and heavily supported by Oprah. The film is already gathering praise, winning the Audience Award and the Grand Jury Prize for best drama at Sundance Film Festival.

My wish to see it has nothing to do with its star-studded cast (which includes Mo'Nique, Mariah Carey, Lenny Kravitz). I admit, I am interested in seeing Miss Gabourey Sidibe make her debut. :-)

My main reason for seeing Precious will be the same reason that I considered NOT seeing the film: the novel it’s based on. Push is some heavy sh*t. It is one of two novels whose realism made me physically nauseous while reading it (the second being The Stoning of Soraya M. by Freidoune Sahebjam. The film version came out this summer…heh, I was too afraid to see it). Precious deals with some very relevant disturbing issues.

I interviewed Sapphire at a hotel in downtown Chicago. We sat and talked for about an hour. She was an easy interview because she was very outspoken. The interview was for BookEnds, a section of Essence Magazine’s website at the time. I’ve since lost the article. However, a few days ago, I remembered that I had the interview on my old computer. Here is an excerpt from the interview where Sapphire speaks about sexism and sexual abuse (note: this is all Sapphire speaking):

…Writers just have to be ready. If I was Chinese, I’d be writing about Chinese men. I don’t think that my books are vastly different from what white women are writing. For me, there is no such thing as the black man/black woman problem. Sexism is a worldwide phenomenon and the patriarchy is a phenomenon that exists among all peoples of the world. Black men are not exempt from it. They are not worse than other men and they are not better.

Women own two percent of this world’s property, call the UN and check up on it. That’s called sexism. That’s called producing the bodies that fuel this world, doing most of the labor, the cooking the cleaning, the working of the fields and you own two percent of the property.

As we speak right now, a female baby in China is being murdered. In India, when the husband dies, the wife must be murdered also. There are women in Africa being cliterendectomized. In Sweden and Denmark there are child porn films being made. This is what sexism is.

I remember when my own parents divorced. My father had everything, the house, the car, everything. My father died with six figures, my mother died on welfare. This is one family. That’s real. That’s what sexism is.

It isn’t necessarily about getting beaten up and raped and all that. It’s the same thing as racism. We can be all dressed up and everything but the net worth of African Americans is only one quarter that of whites in this country. We are just talking about some material conditions that exist and from those conditions arise mental and social conditions such as female slavery, prostitution, the murder, the abuse of children and rape of women. This has nothing to do with “black people.”

When you finish Push, Precious talks about the good things too: her life, learning, her child, her friends, Langston Hughes. In the beginning, she’s full of anger. But she’s really full of love. She loves everyone. They don’t love her. She’s loves the black men that don’t want to be her boyfriend because she’s fat and black. She loves Madonna. She loves Alice Walker, Langston Hughes. It’s not a book about hate and vindictiveness. It’s a book about redemption and love. It’s about how one abused child comes forward to become a strong woman.

The hardest material happens in the first chapter. What would be the point of writing a novel if there was no change or growth in the end? The book is not about pain, it’s about push. You can either lie down and do nothing or you can stand up and be strong.

Precious could have gone out and hurt other people or become a crack addict. Why doesn’t someone like her go out and do something like what happened in Littleton, Colorado? Why does she try to go to school, try to get money for diapers for her baby? Why does she try when so many who have suffered less than her take the darker path?

In the beginning of the book, she gives birth to a child. What is dark about that? What could be brighter than that? It would have been dark if she had done like that girl at the prom who strangled her baby. The criticism of Push sometimes baffles me.

And don’t you think it [sexual abuse] disturbs the people it’s happening to? This is happened to 40 percent of American women. Don’t you think it disturbs them? It’s not my fault. Forty percent of women say that they have been sexually abused under the age of 15, whether it’s by parents or the bus driver. This is something that happens to women in western culture. Right now, you can get on the net and surf for the child porn of your choice.

If it really disturbs you, there are ways that we can work to stop the abuse of women and children. And I’m not going to stop writing about it until it stops happening.

preliminary cover of my forthcoming adult novel, Who Fears Death

2009-08-28T05:20:00.021-05:00

This is the preliminary cover for my forthcoming adult novel, Who Fears Death.

My favorite parts are the vulture (my main character Onyesonwu has a...special relationship with vultures), the colors and Onyesonwu’s stance. The story takes place in the desert region of a specific part of Africa in the future. Oh and yes, her light skin tone is totally accurate, as is her African hair. ;-). The designers at DAW hit it all right on the nail. Bravo!

Scheduled for release

June 10, 2010

from DAW Books

David Anthony Durham, award-winning author of Acacia, said this about Who Fears Death:

"Nnedi Okorafor has embarked on a rather stunning literary journey. In several wonderful novels and short stories, she has tapped into diverse traditions that date back into the dawn of humanity’s first storytelling ventures. She uses this material toward a forward-looking complexity that, I believe, predicts the coming face of global speculative fiction. Her latest novel for adults, Who Fears Death, is urgently topical, at times brutal, and always wholly original."

My response to District 419…I mean District 9. ;-)

2009-08-23T15:47:00.022-05:00

Initially, I wasn’t going to post a response to District 9. I felt like doing so would be equivalent to walking through a field full of very sensitive land mines. But what’s life without danger, eh? So, here goes:

*WARNING: This review is one huge spoiler of a film that is already spoiled*

I despised District 9. It sucked eggs. Not impressed. Boooooo! Back to the drawing board.

Before writing this, I researched District 9’s director Neill Blomkamp a bit. I went to Wikipedia to see what informative links I could find. Here’s what the first sentence of his entry read:

“Neill Blomkamp is a racist South African born, Vancouver, BC-based director of feature-length and short films and advertisements.”

Guess I wasn’t the only one thoroughly pissed off by his film. I’m not one to laugh at other people’s misfortune but, honestly, Blomkamp had that coming. And as a Nigerian, it certainly was NOT my job to remove the slanderous word from his Wikipedia entry. So I left it (the word “racist” was gone in a matter of minutes).

I saw District 9 with my two older sisters (Ifeoma and Ngozi). Like me, both are huge fans of science fiction and Peter Jackson (despite his King Kong savages). We were so excited that we were giggling and snickering as we took our seats. We’d been waiting months to see this film.

Within the first fifteen minutes, this happy ambiance changed to something negatively charged. Our initial annoyance was mainly due to the lack of darker skinned faces interviewed in the opening sequence of the film. This was a film set in and about an African country, for goodness sake. Last I read, blacks made up about 80 percent of South Africa’s population and whites about 10 percent.

Finally a black woman was interviewed. But from what I recall (I’ve only seen it once, so this is all from memory), she isn’t given a designation as everyone else was! She was just someone off the street, not a person of authority (God forbid). My sisters and I began to get antsy.

Our whispered cursing really started when the film got to… “The Nigerians”. It was all downhill from there. I’d say this was the whitest big budget “African science fiction” film ever but really it’s the ONLY big budget “African Science fiction” film ever. Go figure. Even when the mainstream science fiction film is set on the “Dark Continent”, the central character is still white, ha ha, wow.

A summation of my issues with District 9:

1. Gender- Did the aliens HAVE to be, well, “male”? I say “male” because the “Nigerian” prostitutes servicing the aliens were female, the aliens behaved “male”-ish and they even DRESSED like “males”. Christopher the alien was male (at least by name) and had a son, too. There was an alien in a bra but I got the feeling he was a male transvestite (is that what you’d call an alien who is “male” yet dresses as a human female? I mean, he had a bra on…the aliens didn’t have breasts). So again I ask, did they HAVE to be “male”, which is what non-humans are usually assumed to be in such films unless otherwise specified? And how much more interesting would the film have been if they were female? Oh, but that would require complexity, which this film sorely lacked.

2. Casting.

3. The ease the two central aliens had flying that humongous ship after so many years.

4. The existence of a substance that turned humans to aliens (Uh, why would the aliens have that? Maybe I missed something).

5. The unexplained little fighting aliens (whose only purpose seemed to be to show how barbaric “The Nigerians” were).

6. The weird obsession Wikus had with destroying himself (pulling off his nails, tearing his skin, etc…if your nail came off would you PULL off another?! It was all for shock value).

7. The “Transformer” showing up at the end of the film (mind you, I LOVE “Robots in Disguise”…just not in D9).

8. The use of black Africans as mere setting (especially when the film needed to show chaos, scared mobs or atmosphere).

9. Only two smart, ambitious aliens?

10. The simplicity of the plot when there was so much potential complexity. Sigh, so much potential. :-(

The issue I feel was the most harmful, however, was the portrayal of peoples from the country of Nigeria.

After seeing the film, I vented to SF author and dear friend Alan Dean Foster. He’s a white guy who has travelled and really experienced the world and has written kick-ass SF based in Africa (Into the Out Of) and India (Sagramanda), amongst other places. He also writes a lot of film novelizations, the most recent being for this summer’s Star trek and Terminator films. He’s one of my favorite people to get perspective from when I’m infuriated about stuff like this.

“Your reaction to the one-sided portrayal of Nigerians was (understandably) visceral and protective,” he told me. “I winced, but could not have the same reaction even if I wanted to.”

He’s right, I am in super-protective mode. Let’s get it straight, most Nigerians are just trying to live their lives. Only a small tiny teensy miniscule minority are sending out those annoying 419 scam emails, drug dealing and participating in other forms of corruption. I recently had to explain this to a FedEx representative after he gave me a big lecture about 419 scams when I called about a package I was expecting from Nigeria. So excuse my sensitively. Nigerians are just like any other group of people from a particular country; we’ve got our crooks and saints. However, District 9 spoke otherwise. Through the way it told its story and its chosen images, the film generalized Nigerians in a very negative way.

“The Nigerians”, that’s how they were described in the film, as if the mere title is enough to explain their savagery and baseness. My sisters and I are Nigerians and as Nigerians, this aspect of the film was AGONY to watch.

In the film, the head “Nigerian” was named Obasanjo. That name carries baggage. Olusegun Obasanjo is the name of Nigeria’s previous president. The character Obasanjo in the film was essentially a cannibal, for the aliens were more on the level of human beings than other animals, no matter how they looked or how poorly humans treated them. It was like slave masters eating their slaves’ body parts with the belief that doing so would make them powerful.

Later on in the film, Obasanjo wants to even eat the main character, Wikus van der Merwe! You’d think a human turned alien wouldn’t be as potent, but I digress. This might have been a poorly thought out reference to the ritual killings that happen in Nigeria…I think. Or maybe it was just another racist depiction of Africans. You decide.

Was naming the cannibalistic leader of “The Nigerians” “Obasanjo” supposed to be a jab at Nigeria or just sloppy researching? If it was a jab…um, I don’t get it.

Alan believed the latter, “The Nigerian leader’s name was Obasanjo because that's lazy writing...not enough time to research another, less readily-available name,” he said. “I don't think any political comment was intended. I think they just picked the first Nigerian name they came across.”

Humph, I say. Fiddle sticks. Once again minorities get to suffer from the sloppiness of the majority.

Then there was the witchdoctor woman shaking her dreadlocks around, shrieking, and eeeevilly proclaiming that eating the aliens’ body parts would bring Obasanjo gggrrreatttt powah, o! She made me want to punch somebody. The director perhaps. My oldest sister was about to spontaneously combust! It was a surreal WTF moment. Our reactions were not just because we were Nigerian women with long dreadlocks. I mean, she might as well have had a bone through her nose and been muttering “unga munga”. She was just… alllll wrong. One great big very old stereotype.

Put yourself in our position, sitting in a theater full of mostly white viewers seeing that. It felt yucky!

That wasn’t the only wrong image. In some cases I was reminded a photo I once saw in a series of photos called “The True Stories Behind Famous WTF Images” (See it here):

The “Hyena men” from Nigeria were featured in a photographer’s album. While these images were striking, the story behind them is apparently an embellishment:

According to Cracked.com the truth about this image was:

“That’s just Mallam Mantari Lamal, and his pet, Mainasara. They’re part of a group of “Hyena Guides,” who were rumored to be elite gangsters, shadowy assassins and brutal bank robbers in their home country of Nigeria. But that’s just the Nigerians making up their own shit in an effort to explain the mysterious appearance of a raggedy man strolling into town, walking a wild predator on a chain like it’s a poodle. But the Hyena Guides, in reality, are basically just gypsy showmen, traveling from town to town and putting on performances with their animals in order to hawk homemade crafts and medicines, or just to trade. In fact, not all of them even have hyenas.”

Maybe Blomkamp was fed some wrong information in this way, too. Storytelling certainly is a Nigerian tradition. Maybe I should cut Blomkamp some slack. Uh…no. So let’s continue shall we?...

Why were “The Nigerians” the only human beings living with the aliens? Were they the only ones primitive enough to live with aliens? Well, the Nigerian women were providing sexual “services” to the aliens, so I guess so (did they really have to go there? And why… ugh, my blood pressure is rising. I think I’ve made my point on this subject).

Why were the black South Africans portrayed so positively and the “Nigerians” so negatively? On top of all this, there was not one redeeming Nigerian character. They were all crazy, motiveless, and blood thirsty. And that’s why in the end, all “The Nigerians” were summarily killed off at basically the same time, complete with the “close on”, cliché, super violent killing of Obasanjo as the cherry on top. The director obviously felt that this would be satisfying to viewers in the sense that eeeevil was thoroughly vanquished. I’ve got an uncle living in South Africa. I hope he never sees this film.

I just sit here wondering what this director had against people from Nigeria. Maybe he was a victim of a 419 scam.

One person (who happened to be Nigerian) commented on my blog: “There has been some South African/Nigerian tension for a few years now.” Ok, that helps me understand this a bit but if there is such tension it wasn’t EXPLAINED or addressed in the film at all. And it was portrayed in a very one-sided way.

It bothers me that this film has gotten such stellar reviews. But I guess that just shows how low people’s standards for Hollywood films are. The problem with setting your standards low so you can enjoy movies is that it allows them to get away with some serious irresponsible rubbish. And it makes directors, writers, and producers very very lazy. I want to see an SF film set in Africa as much as anyone but I don’t like to see things done half-assed.

I will say I loved the parts in the beginning where the aliens interacted with human beings. I wanted a LOT more of that. That was where the film hummed. And the use of the word “prawns” for some reason made me laugh really hard (not WITH the name users as much as AT them). It was such a derogatory word for the aliens that were more foreign to humans than “uncivilized”. And I still want a “No Humans Allowed” t-shirt. The film did some things right but those were easily overshadowed by the achingly wrong.

I hope Nollywood is paying attention. I’ll give it poke if it needs one. :-)

Alan just sent me this cartoon that had me rolling (note: click on it if you can't see the full image):

http://www.madamandeve.co.za/weekend_cartoon.php

That about sums it up.

Is Africa Ready for Science Fiction

2009-08-12T18:21:00.001-05:00

Is Africa Ready for Science Fiction?

originally posted on the Nebula Awards Blog

Guest Blog by Nnedi Okorafor on August 12 2009

Over the last few weeks, I’ve had some interesting conversations with award-winning Nollywood director Tchidi Chikere about science fiction (Nollywood is Nigeria’s oh-so-popular film industry. The term “Nollywood” is a play on “Hollywood”, much the same way as India’s “Bollywood”).

Chikere has written, produced, and directed over 50 films. He also published a collection of rather chilling short stories titled Strangers in Paradise. The collection includes a novella called “Daughter of the Cave,” which is essentially a fantasy piece. Chikere sought me out after my novel, Zahrah the Windseeker, piqued his interest. Needless to say, I was delighted and honored to hear from him.

During one of our conversations, we discussed my own work and whether it could be translated to film, particularly African film. “Is Africa ready for science fiction?” he asked me. We debated this for a while. Naturally, I believed Africa was ready…ready enough, at least. Notwithstanding my own contentions, Chikere had other ideas.

“I don t think we’re ready in the primary sense of the word,” Chikere said. “We can hide it in other categories like magic realism, allegory, etc, but we’re not ready for pure science fiction.”

“Science fiction films from the West are failures here. Even Star Wars!” he said. “The themes aren’t taken seriously. Science fiction will come here when it is relevant to the people of Africa. Right now, Africans are bothered about issues of bad leadership, the food crisis in East Africa, refugees in the Congo, militants here in Nigeria. Africans are bothered about food, roads, electricity, water wars, famine, etc, not spacecrafts and spaceships. Only stories that explorethese everyday realities are considered relevant to us for now.”

Naunihal Singh, a professor of comparative politics specializing in conflict, civil-military relations, and the politics of Sub-Saharan Africa at Notre Dame University (and a fan of speculative fiction), had some similar comments about science fiction in Africa.

“Science-fiction will have to adapt itself to the local market,” Singh said. “I don’t think there’s the sensibility for it right now. I remember seeing the Matrix in a mixed crowd of Ghanaians and Americans, this was in Ghana. Even though the room was dark, and there were some 40 plus people there, I could tell who was from where by their reactions to the movie.

“The Ghanaians just weren’t connecting to it. Bring the Terminator to West Africa, and he’d stop running in a day. He’d sit there and glitch. It’ll be hard to make people afraid of a future where computers take over the world when they can’t manage to keep the computers on their desk running. These are very western stories. On the other hand, classic science fiction, like space exploration stories, would probably work better…assuming it was adapted for the audience. Africans would love to see stories about Africans on a space ship. The idea that Africans might be dominant in the future would resonate so well with nationalism.”

As a writer of African speculative fiction whose work is also published in Africa, I took all this to heart and mind. After really thinking about it, I realize that I fully agree with both Chikere and Singh. And I believe their comments apply to literature, too…probably even more than to film.

Much of my previous work unconsciously tapped into my Nigerian background (along with my American background). It was intuitive. However, when I consider my recent short story in Seeds of Change, “Spider the Artist” (a story where volatile A.I. robot spiders guard oil pipelines in the Niger Delta), this story was different and I felt the difference as I was writing it. I was consciously writing toward an African audience.

In “Spider the Artist”, the focus was not on how the spider-shaped A.I. robots operated or why they decided to break free of human control. The focus was instead on the main character’s life as an abused wife living in the volatile Niger Delta region; on her anxiety over being childless in a culture where barrenness is the worst thing that can happen to a woman; and on her need for love which eventually leads her to befriend a robot. It’s quiet, backdoor science fiction that might better appeal to African audiences.

My forthcoming adult novel, Who Fears Death, is similar in this way. In this novel, there were even moments where my American sensibilities were offended or deeply strained. I’m very interested in moving further in this direction and seeing how things shape up.

Let me stop and state here that there IS a handful of African science fiction out there. There are novels, short stories, and a film or two. This handful is tiny but it exists. However, I didn’t write this essay to tell you about them. They’ll get their due … just not right now. This essay isn’t going to become a bibliography. For now, I just want to bring this issue to the table. Also, I’m aware that I am generalizing when I speak of Africa as a whole. It’s a big super -diverse place. But for the sake of discussing this topic, please allow me to do a bit of generalizing.

In my observation, in Africa, science fiction is still perceived as not being real literature. It is not serious writing. As Chikere said, African audiences don’t feel that science fiction is really concerned with what’s real, what’s present. It’s not tangible. It’s sport. Child’s play. I can see how science fiction can be foreign to many Africans. Technology tends to play a different role on the continent. There is a weird divide and connection between the technologically advanced and the ancient. For example: People will have cells phones in rural villages yet have no plumbing or electricity or one will opt to buy a laptop instead of a desktop computer because a laptop has its own power supply, most useful for when “NEPA takes the lights”.

But there’s another layer to the issue: Colonialism and the colonizers existing attitudes about what is literature and what is not. The foundation of what great literature is in Africa is too often defined by the West and the West still has trouble viewing genre fiction as true literature. This is why I felt it my duty to raise such a stink about the criteria for submitting to The Penguin Prize for African Literature (from Penguin South Africa).

In the criteria, they wrote that they sought “novels of freshness and originality that represent the finest examples of contemporary fiction out of Africa.” Then on the same page, they wrote: “Submissions in the children’s literature, science fiction or fantasy genres will not be considered.”

I can sort of understand the “children’s” literature bit. Sort of. There is plenty of children’s literature that is great literature. But the “no fantasy or science fiction” part? For a prize in AFRICAN literature? All kinds of problems with that.

After expressing my unhappiness to the folks at Penguin SA, I received a response from the publisher:

Dear Nnedi,

Thank you for your email on the criteria for the Penguin Prize for African Writing – we welcome input on the prize criteria and I’m sure we’ll hone them over time with considered feedback such as yours. We certainly did not intend to exclude writing with elements of fantasy or science fiction but rather to avoid the submission of books that will only appeal to a very narrow readership and that can only be marketed in the science fiction and fantasy section of a bookshop and do not have appeal to a broader readership. We will try to clarify this for the next round of the prize, but in the meantime could I encourage you to submit your work despite this stipulation in the criteria?

There you have it folks. Such prizes heavily influence the definition of “great literature” in Africa. All this stipulation will do is further the void between speculative fiction and “real literature”. Imagine how many potential African science fiction or fantasy writers and novels have been effectively excluded, disqualified, and demoralized by this mere stipulation.

Recently, I discussed issues of such gate keeping with New York Times Best-Selling science fiction author Tobias Buckell, who has similar concerns about Caribbean science fiction. “My solution is to write fiction that is more balanced, that will hopefully eventually get more writers to feel free to write a range of story types,” he said. “I want to be so good that eventually they can’t ignore me.”

Agreed.

I think the stage is already set for African science fiction. In my forthcoming YA novel, Akata Witch, there are these…things called “tungwa”. They are glowing balls of flesh that float in the air and explode into tufts of hair and handfuls of teeth. I learned of “tungwa” from my mother. She said her father used to talk about them and that a friend of his friend had seen them. Her father said these things came from outer space, like meteors, and that in the village and forests, children used to find them and bat them around until they burst. Weeeeeeeird. This is just one small example. The stories are there, they don’t need to be imported.

OK, the following are a few samples of African science fiction (yes, I know there are more): Ghanaian author Kojo Laing has a collection of short stories and a novels respectively titled, Big Bishop Roko and the Alter Gangsters and Woman of the Aeroplanes. Congolese author Emmanuel Boundzeki Dongala has a short story called “Jazz and Palm Wine” (the anthology it appears in is also called Jazz and Palm Wine). In South Africa, science fiction is really percolating; The South African literary journal, Chimurenga, recently had an African science fiction themed issue. Film-wise, there is now District 9 (I’ve been excitedly anticipating this film for months). And, if you can find it, check out Les Saignantes by Cameroonian film director Jean-Pierre Bekolo. Lastly, I just have to include the trailer for this Nollywood fantasy film because it cracks me up: Across the Bridge.

In a nutshell, I think getting African audiences to open up to science fiction will take some finesse.True African science fiction, which is different from what Western audiences are used to consuming, needs to be written/filmed and made available first.

I think one will have to deliberately combine the concept of “art as a tool for social commentary and change” and entertainment. The root of the technology, cultural shifts, sentiments, concerns,characters, way of speaking, needs that drive the story must first and foremost be endemically African. Along with the unfamiliar, must come the familiar. And yes, it’ll have to be a gradual ascent. A whisper to a shout. A ghostly woman in the night to a full blown alien invasion in the middle of Imo State that only a frustrated plantain chip seller named Chukwudi can stop. Only then will African audiences be ready. Chikere and I are working on it.

Nnedi Okorafor is an award-winning science fiction and fantasy author of Nigerian descent. Her novels include Zahrah the Windseeker (winner of the 2008 Wole Soyinka Prize for African Literature) and The Shadow Speaker (An NAACP Image Award Nominee). Her forthcoming novels Who Fears Death (from DAW) and Akata Witch (from Penguin) are scheduled for release in 2010. Her Disney Fairies chapter book, Iridessa and the Fire-Bellied Dragon Frog (Disney Press), is scheduled for release in 2010. She holds a PhD in literature and is a professor of creative writing at Chicago State University. Visit her online at nnedi.com.

I love stuff like this

2009-07-21T12:54:00.004-05:00

I just read this news story on the Nigerian Tribune's website.

It's the material stories are made of. It's not just the fact that tigers (wild ones at least) aren't found in Benin. Look at how the story is reported. Tiger is in quotes; which makes people like me start thinking of...more mysterious creatures (*grin*). And that last paragraph is just hilarious. It's a great bit of news.

Mysterious ‘tiger’ causes tension in Benin
by Uchechukwu Olisah, Benin City - 21.07.2009

originally published in the Nigerian Tribune

A mysterious ‘tiger’, reportedly roaming the streets of Benin City, the Edo State capital, is sending fear down the spines of residents and creating tension in the city.

News of the sighting of the roaming ‘tiger’ at the University of Benin Teaching Hospital (UBTH) in the early hours of Monday generated further tension and panic in Benin City.

Police personnel attached to the UBTH, who were on night duty, claimed that they saw the tiger between 12:30a.m. and 3a.m. on Monday.

One of the policemen on duty, who preferred anonymity, said the ‘tiger’ was sighted in the front of the UBTH police post at about 12:30am by a female police officer, who, he said, passed out urine unconsciously on herself before alerting her colleagues on duty.