NNEDI OKORAFOR ON AFROFUTURISM, BARACK OBAMA, AND STEPHEN KING'S SUPER DUPER MAGICAL NEGROES (MF Galaxy 026)
Nnedi Okorafor is
the celebrated author of ten books, including The
Shadow Speaker, Who Fears Death, and the forthcoming The Book of Phoenix.
Zahrah the Windseeker, Okorafor’s
debut novel about a highly technological world based on Nigerian myths and
culture, was nominated for the Locus
Best First Novel Award, shortlisted for the Parallax and Kindred Awards, a
finalist for the Golden Duck and Garden State Teen Choice awards, and it won
the Wole Soyinka Prize for Literature.
This episode’s conversation
with Okorafor comes from way down deep in the archives of The
Terrordome: The Africa All-World News Service. I spoke with Okorafor by telephone
back on January 18, 2009, but back then aired only a portion of what you’ll
hear now. Okorafor talked about many issues, including:
- Her definition of what Euro-American literary critic Mark Dery called Afrofuturism
- The appeal of science fiction to African audiences who have for most of the genre’s existence been excluded by it
- Her thoughts on just how Africentric The Matrix series is, or isn’t
- And the thesis of her famous 2004 essay called “Stephen King's Super-Duper Magical Negroes,” and what it reveals about American literary culture and politics.
We also discuss the powerful effect on self-conception that the American continent-wide
rape gulag had on the West Africans who became the African-Americans, which
were profoundly different from the effects that mass enslavement had on the so-called
“indentured servants”—that is to say, European slaves, not to mention
the rest of humanity since slavery existed across the planet.
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