Nnedi Okorafor is an accomplished F/SF author who has written several New York Times bestsellers and has won major awards in both America and Africa. Her latest novel is a stand-alone science fiction novel for adults, set mostly in Chicago and Nigeria. Despite its complex themes and ideas, it flows easily, with enough suspense to carry the reader through changing narrators and styles.
Clik here to view.
The story centers around Zelu, a young Nigerian-American woman who is partially paralyzed after a childhood accident. At the beginning of the novel, her career as a writer is in tatters. Her novel is rejected for the tenth time, and she is fired from her adjunct professor position because of her poor attitude. In shame and depression, she begins writing a science fiction novel about robots. The astonishing success of this novel drives the rest of Okorafor’s book.
Zelu, oddly for a novel’s protagonist, is a fairly unpleasant woman. To be fair, the world around her, including her family, is trying to protect her in ways that she doesn’t want or need to be protected. She also doesn’t want to behave in the ways that either Americans and Africans think a disabled woman ought to behave. The success of her SF novel does not grant her immediate acceptance or happiness, but it does demonstrate her strength and determination. I didn’t have to like her to feel that I understood her and sympathized with her completely.
Distributed between the chapters about Zelu’s career, are two other narratives. One is the successful SF story Zelu writes. Though it is perhaps not actually the best SF novel I’ve ever read, it is insightful and, even though there are battles between opposing factions of robots, surprisingly sweet. There are also chapters relating a journalist’s interviews with Zelu’s friends and family, conducted after “everything that happened.” I’ll leave new readers to find out exactly what it is that happens.
The parallel stories are obviously intertwined and meant to enhance each other. Together they certainly tell a tale about the power of storytelling. I suspect that with rereading and further discussion, this book has more to offer than I was able to take in on my quick initial reading. I’m looking forward to others reading the book and telling me what they found.
The post Death of the Author by Nnedi Okorafor appeared first on DreamHaven.
