It's a magical world

Okorafor, Nnedi. Who Fears Death. New York: Daw Books, 2010.

This is an intense, roiling, powerful melange of a book. I read it in about three hours on a plane, which may not have been the strictly best thing for my mental state, but was a very interesting experience.

I borrowed my copy of this book to oliviacirce before I wrote this post, so my apologies if I get any of the names wrong; corrections welcome, as always.

( The following contains discussion of weaponized rape, female genital mutilation, and genocide.  ) I can't wait to read Okorafor's newest, Akata Witch.

Okorafor, Nnedi. The Shadow Speaker. New York: Jump at the Sun/Hyperion, 2007.

Nnedi Okorafor is one of the Guests of Honor at this year's WisCon, which I am planning to attend, so I thought I should probably read her books. This one is set in what we'd call Niger and Nigeria, in 2070, forty years after the Great Change in which nuclear weapons combined with "peace bombs" to produce a world in which there is no longer any division between science and magic, and in which the barriers between Earth and four other worlds--particularly Ginen, which lies particularly "close" to the Sahara desert, which is no longer a desert--have vanished completely. Camels talk, owls hunt by day, and metahumans like fourteen-year-old Ejii are born with cat's eyes and abilities ranging from flight to telepathy to rainmaking and everything in between.

I really, really liked this book. Ejii is an appealing, complex protagonist--a believer in peace who allies with the warrior woman who killed her father to stop a war, a Muslim who wrestles with when and whether to wear a burka or a veil but whose faith never wavers, a reluctant shadow speaker who undertakes a journey that may get her killed, or bring her abilities to fruition, despite the risk. Moreover, her relationships with her mother and her dead father are complex, and the boy Dikéogu, whom she meets along the way, is realistically but sympathetically characterized--a family friend sold him into slavery on a chocolate plantation after his parents cast him out. Given that child trafficking in Nigeria is a contemporary and not just a future problem, to say nothing of the book's larger philosophical and social concerns, particularly the role of women in society, and non-violence, the book strikes very close to home, I think. I also really like Jaa, the Red Queen, who seems to slide between roles as easily as she does between worlds, but remains herself. She's a fascinating adult woman character who isn't characterized according to stereotypes. I should note, though, that at the end the book does avail itself of the fat = evil cliché.

Perhaps inevitably, I was reminded a little bit of Nancy Farmer's The Eye, the Ear and the Arm while reading this book, because they remain the only two YA fantasies set in Africa that I've read. Clearly, though, there should be a lot more. Luckily, Okorafor has more books available.

P.S. Dear Jump at the Sun: Get a copyeditor who knows when to use a comma versus a semicolon versus a dash. Seriously.