In the boom of African speculative fiction over the past decade, no one has had a bigger impact than Nigerian American author Nnedi Okorafor. In her award-winning science fiction-inspired novels and novellas, among them Who Fears Death, Lagoon and the Binti trilogy, as well as in comic series LaGuardia and Black Panther: Long Live the King, she combines gripping narrative, imaginative storytelling and acute political questions of class, identity, and the impending climate crisis.
Nnedi Okorafor is a pioneer of africanfuturism – speculative fiction that centres Africa. For years, her stories have dealt with existential questions of identity and belonging while building on settings and mythologies from continental Africa, especially Nigerian traditions and Igbo folklore, earning her a place of honour in both literary and speculative fiction circles. Now, her forthcoming novel Death of the Author combines the fantastical and the down to earth, in a seismic novel about the personal cost of being heard.
Her books have won a host of science fiction and fantasy awards, including the Hugo, Nebula, World Fantasy, Locus and the Lodestar Award. Her work has been lauded by writers such as George R. R. Martin, Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, and has set the benchmark for exploring African themes in speculative fiction.
Author and scholar at the University of Oslo, Marta Mboka Tveit, has been a long-time scholar and promoter of African speculative fiction. She joins Okorafor at the House of Literature for a conversation on the wonderful worlds and stories of africanfuturism.
This event is part of a program celebrating africanfuturism in literature, art and music, a collaboration between MUNCH and the House of Literature.
Read MUNCHs program here.
This event is supported by NORAD.