DEATH OF THE AUTHOR, by Nnedi Okorafor
In 2019, after Nnedi Okorafor had grown tired of being called an “afrofuturist,” she coined a new descriptor for herself on her blog: “africanfuturist.” Both terms concern the Black diaspora, Okorafor wrote, but africanfuturism is specifically rooted in Africa. “I needed to regain control of how I was being defined,” she asserted.
This urge to reclaim one’s own identity pulses throughout Okorafor’s new book, “Death of the Author,” a spellbinding novel that traces a Nigerian American woman’s quest for freedom and self-invention despite the social and cultural conventions that try to contain her. And Okorafor’s protagonist, Zelunjo Onyenezi-Onyedele, faces many conventions.
Zelu was born and raised in Chicago, the daughter of successful Nigerian immigrants. While her five siblings either have or are working toward distinguished high-paying professions, Zelu has a creative writing M.F.A. and is an adjunct professor at a university. She has also been in a wheelchair since an accident left her paraplegic at 12; as a result, “not much had ever been expected of her” by her family.
But Zelu is no wallflower — not in her ambition, and certainly not in temperament. Early on, we see her unceremoniously fired for harshly critiquing a smug white male student’s writing; soon after, she receives her 10th rejection on a novel she spent five years writing. She bears the heaviness of these setbacks for a time, but she has grown adept at shaking off the “beast” that is self-pity.
And she’s strong enough to start writing something new: a science fiction novel called “Rusted Robots.” Set in Nigeria after nearly all humanity has perished, leaving only automated entities in their wake, the book becomes “a world that she’d like to play in when things got to be too much, but which didn’t exist yet.” It also becomes an excellent source of income, earning Zelu a seven-figure three-book deal, a top spot on the best-seller list and even a Hollywood film option. The most life-changing opportunity, though, comes from Dr. Hugo Wagner, a mechanical engineer at M.I.T. “I can make you a robot,” he writes, explaining that he and his biomechatronics team have developed technology that could give Zelu robotic legs, or “exoskeletons.”
Zelu’s family members are vocally skeptical. Perhaps the most crushing response comes from her mother, who has the hardest time of everyone with Zelu’s boldness: “He could do that with anyone,” she says of Dr. Wagner’s offer. “What’s special about you?”
The answer can be found in Zelu’s richly drawn complexities. Following Zelu’s journey feels a lot like following your most audacious friend on Instagram — you’re torn between admiring her and worrying about her. Her guilt from her traumatic childhood accident still plagues her, but she continues to seek out new, terrifying experiences. She requests the support of her loved ones but does not let their opinions sway her. So Zelu ignores the concerns of her family and her partner, Msizi, and goes to M.I.T.
Of course, her fame and new exoskeletons present additional trials that range from the realistic to the surreal. At one point, a journalist calls out Zelu’s privilege, questioning her ability to be a role model to people with disabilities who lack access to such sophisticated technology. When Zelu retorts that she doesn’t owe anyone anything, social media turns on her with hashtags like “#AbleistDisabledWriter” and “#BoycottRustedRobots.” Another instance finds Zelu running 35 miles on her exoskeleton legs to escape kidnappers in Nigeria.
Okorafor pulls us so deeply into Zelu’s innermost workings that her wins and losses feel like our own even if we don’t fully agree with her choices. I sometimes wanted Zelu to clap back at her family. But Okorafor wisely urges us to empathize with Zelu’s loved ones by incorporating their perspectives, too. Interview responses from family members dot the book, each with varying anecdotes about our hero. In one especially illuminating interview, her younger sister Bola comments upon Zelu’s desire to return to Nigeria despite her homeland’s inconsideration for people with disabilities: “Something in our blood made us love the land, the people, the cultures, the traditions, unconditionally.”
The other perspective belongs to Ankara, the robot protagonist of “Rusted Robots.” Sections of “Rusted Robots” appear throughout “Death of the Author,” coaxing us to see the through lines connecting Zelu and her characters. Ankara has a deep love for storytelling, and her antagonist, Ijele — an A.I. entity who eschews a physical body — proclaims in one excerpt: “Body is not a god. … The experience of the world is much deeper and wider than any one body can hold.”
While thoroughly imaginative, these excerpts sometimes feel weighed down by world-building, and they lack the subtleties of Zelu’s more grounded, fluid world. But they are essential to the novel’s most prominent concern: the nebulous link between artists and their art. With one final, surprising reveal, Okorafor cleverly subverts the very nature of this link, and we are left reconsidering everything we’ve just read. The effect is as delicious as it is disorienting.
DEATH OF THE AUTHOR | By Nnedi Okorafor | William Morrow | 435 pp. | $30