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Nnedi Okorafor is a Nigerian-American author of fantasy and science fiction for both children and adults. She has published numerous novels, novellas, and short story collections. Her work has earned her multiple accolades from the science fiction and fantasy literary community, most notably the prestigious Hugo award four times.
Okorafor’s most recent novel, “Death of the Author,” has autobiographical elements. Okorafor, like her protagonist Zelu, comes from an extensive Nigerian-American family. Zelu and her creator both lost the use of their legs at an early age.
The narrative begins as Zelu, confined to a wheelchair while attending a cousin’s wedding in Trinidad and Tobago, learns that she has been fired from her job as an adjunct professor of literature at a Chicago university. At nearly the same time she learns that her novel, which has consumed years of her time, has been rejected by the last of many publishers.
Devastated, Zelu vows to write a novel to be viewed by her eyes only. She launches into a story far outside her accustomed literary genre. Though she had promised herself the book was never to be made public, she sends it to her agent fully expecting another disappointing spate of rejection after rejection.
To her amazement her agent is enthralled, and soon she has become a literary superstar. Even before its publication Hollywood studios have begun a bidding war for the rights to turn Rusted Robots into a major, high-budget film.
At this point in the novel the reader is introduced to Ankara, an android who exists on an Earth devoid of all human life after an unspecified apocalyptic event. Ankara’s story is interspersed, chapter by chapter, with the adventures of Zelu, the human protagonist.
As the novel progresses, more and more interconnections between the world Zelu inhabits and the one in which Ankar lives become apparent. By its conclusion the reader is left to wonder which story is being produced by which entity; Zelu writing of Ankara or the other way around
The literary structure of “Death of the Author” resembles the double helix of the DNA molecule; twin strands of information bound together by dissimilar but complementary base pairs. Okorafor has created something new and riveting, a novel that will be appreciated by admirers of literary and speculative fiction alike.
