Nnedi Okorafor on Sci-Fi Through an African Lens

The New Yorker Radio Hour

WNYC Studios and The New Yorker

News, David, Books, Arts, Storytelling, Wnyc, New, Remnick, News Commentary, Yorker, Politics

4.2 • 5.5K Ratings

🗓️ 11 January 2022

⏱️ 24 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Nnedi Okorafor, a recipient of the prestigious Hugo Award, is a prolific writer of science-fiction and fantasy novels for adults and young adults. She spoke with Vinson Cunningham about how her Nigerian American heritage influenced her interest in fantastical worlds. “It’s part of the culture—this mysticism,” she says. “I wanted to write about those mystical things that people talked about but didn’t talk about because they were mysterious and interesting, and sometimes forbidden.” Her novel “Akata Woman,” which comes out this month, is the third in a series that also acknowledges complicated relationships among peoples of the African diaspora. Plus, Julian Lucas is a passionate gamer, with a particular interest in video games as a form of landscape art. He walks David Remnick through the forthcoming game Norco, a highly anticipated thriller set in coastal Louisiana.

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is the New Yorker Radio Hour, a co-production of WNYC Studios and the New Yorker.
0:14.0	Before she started writing, Nediakora for it was a young athlete and a very good one.
0:18.6	Yeah, I played semi-protonous and you know, I was a track star, all of that.
0:23.8	She began writing when she was in college, after her life had changed suddenly and profoundly.
0:29.9	I first started telling stories after a really, you know, traumatic kind of thing because it was like,
0:36.6	I was an athlete and then I had to have this spinal surgery that left me,
0:40.7	there were complications and the main complication was that left me paralyzed from the waist down.
0:46.0	But the way that I brought myself from the darkness during all of that was, you know, I found storytelling.
0:54.7	I haven't stopped writing since I started writing in that hospital, but as soon as I discovered it,
0:59.7	it was just, it's what I do.
1:02.7	A chore for a regain to ability to walk and kept on writing.
1:06.7	She got a PhD in literature and began to publish.
1:10.1	She's the author now of a long list of fantasy and sci-fi books for adults and young adults,
1:15.3	along with Black Panther Comics for Marvel.
1:18.3	And her book, Akada Woman, comes out this month.
1:21.5	It's the third in a series.
1:23.3	It's about a teenager named Sonny, who's Nigerian-American, just like a chore for herself.
1:28.7	But Sonny has moved to Nigeria and she's discovered that she's got magical powers.
1:34.1	Nediacore, for spoke recently, with the New Yorkers Vincent Cunningham.
1:39.5	The modes that you work in, science fiction and fantasy, how did you arrive in that place?
1:45.5	I grew up reading everything.
1:47.7	I had this kind of weird habit of going into the library and not looking at the category.
	...

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