Nnedimma Nkemdili Okorafor was born inCincinnati, Ohio, in 1974 toIgbo Nigerian parents who travelled toAmerica in 1969[6] to attend school but could not return toNigeria due to theNigerian Civil War.[7] She holds both American and Nigerian citizenships.[8]
Okorafor is the third child in a family of four children and she grew up inChicago, Illinois, often travelling to Nigeria to spend holidays with her extended family.[9] Her first name isIgbo for "mother is good".[10]
During her years attendingHomewood-Flossmoor High School in Flossmoor, Illinois, Okorafor was a nationally known tennis and track star[11] and excelled in math and the sciences. She wanted to be an entomologist.[12]
She was diagnosed withscoliosis at the age of 13, a condition that worsened as she grew older. At age 19, she underwentspinal fusion surgery to straighten and fuse her spine; a rare complication led to Okorafor becomingparalyzed from the waist down.[11]
Okorafor turned to writing small stories in the margins of a science-fiction book that she had. It was the first time she had ever written anything creatively. That summer, with intense physical therapy, Okorafor regained her ability to walk with a cane, but she was unable to continue her athletic career. At the suggestion of a friend, she took a creative writing class that spring semester and was writing her first novel by the semester's end.[13]
Okorafor received a 2001 Hurston-Wright literary award for her story "Amphibious Green".[17] Okorafor's short stories have been published in anthologies and magazines, includingDark Matter: Reading The Bones,Enkare Review,Strange Horizons,Moondance magazine, andWriters of the Future Volume XVIII. A collection of her stories, titledKabu Kabu, was published by Prime Books in 2013. It includes the titular piece, co-authored byAlan Dean Foster, six other previously unpublished short stories, and 14 stories that had been previously published in other venues since 2001, with a foreword byWhoopi Goldberg.[18]
TheBinti trilogy began with the 2015 novellaBinti. This was followed byBinti: Home, published in 2017, andBinti: The Night Masquerade, published in 2018.Binti won both the 2016Nebula Award and 2016Hugo Award for best novella,[30][31] and was a finalist for a British Science Fiction Association Award (Best Short) and BooktubeSFF Award (Best Short Work).[27]Binti: Home andBinti: The Night Masquerade both received Hugo nominations for best novella in 2018 and 2019, respectively.[32][33]
In 2020, Okorafor released her middle grade novelIkenga, which was nominated for theEdgar Award.[35]
Okorafor's science fiction novellaRemote Control, set in a near-futureGhana, was published in January 2021. Her adult novelNoor, set in a futurist northern Nigeria, was released in November 2021.[36]
In 2023, a deluxe revised edition of Okorafor's novelThe Shadow Speaker, which was previously out of print, was published byDAW Books under the titleShadow Speaker. It was followed by a sequel;Like Thunder.[41][42]
Also in 2023, Okorafor announced her novella trilogyShe Who Knows which would serve as aprequel and sequel to her 2010 novelWho Fears Death and would focus on the life of Najeeba, Onyesonwu's mother. The first novella was released in August 2024.[43][16]
Okorafor's most recentmetafiction novelDeath of the Author was released in January 2025. The novel previously titledThe Africanfuturist was purchased in a seven-figure deal byWilliam Morrow imprint ofHarperCollins.[44][45][46][47][48]
In February 2017, Okorafor announced viaFacebook that her science-meets-witchcraft short story "Hello, Moto" had been optioned by Nigerian production company Fiery Film.[49][50] The story was adapted into a short film, titledHello, Rain by filmmakerC. J. Obasi.[51] The story tells the tale of a woman who discovers that she can merge witchcraft and technology when she creates wigs for herself and her friends that allow them to wield influence and power, to help battle corruption. Instead, she watches her friends themselves become corrupted.[50][52] A teaser was released in January 2018.[53][54]Hello, Rain had its world premiere at theInternational Short Film Festival Oberhausen on May 6, 2018.[55]
In July 2017, Okorafor announced via Twitter thatWho Fears Death had been picked up byHBO to become a television series, with novelist andGame of Thrones producerGeorge R. R. Martin joining the project as an executive producer.[56] Okorafor will remain involved with the project as a consultant.[57] In January 2021, it was announced thatTessa Thompson's newly formed production company, Viva Maude, had joined the team.[58]
In January 2020, it was announced that Okorafor would co-write the screenplay of an adaptation of herBinti trilogy forHulu with writerStacy Osei-Kuffour.[60][61]
In 2024, an adaptation of Okorafor's novelLagoon is in early development atAmblin Entertainment.[62]
In 2005, Okorafor wrote and published her first play,Full Moon. The Buxville Theater Company in Chicago helped produce this full-length theatrical work.[63]
In 2009, Okorafor donated her archive to the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA) Collection of the Department of Rare Books and Special Collections at theNorthern Illinois University Library.[64]
In October 2017, Okorafor announced via Twitter she would be writing three issues for Marvel'sBlack Panther comic, picking up where authorTa-Nehisi Coates left off. The first issue ofBlack Panther: Long Live the King was released in December 2017.[67][68] A month earlier, a short comic of hers titled "Blessing in Disguise" was included in Marvel'sVenomverse War Stories No. 1, inspired by the2014 Boko Haram kidnapping of more than 200 Nigerian girls.[69] In March 2017, it was announced that she would return to writing derived from the Black Panther, inWakanda Forever, where theDora Milajeteam-up withSpider-Man, theX-Men and theAvengers.[70] In July 2018, it announced that Okorafor would write a solo title focused on Black Panther's sister,Shuri.[71][72]
Broken Places & Outer Spaces, Okorafor's first non-fiction title, was published bySimon & Schuster in 2019.[73]
Okorafor's novels and stories reflect both her West African heritage and her American life. Rather than identifying as Nigerian-American, she refers to herself as "Naijamerican" and explains the importance of her dual heritage during a 2016 NPR interview:
That's very much a part of my identity, and it's also very much a reason why I think I ended up writing science fiction and fantasy because I live on these borders – and these borders that allow me to see from multiple perspectives and kind of take things in and then kind of process certain ideas and certain stories in a unique way. And that has led me to write this strange fiction that I write, which really isn't that strange if you really look at it through a sort of skewed lens.[76]
Okorafor noticed how the fantasy and science fiction genre contain little diversity, and that was her motivation for writing books of these genres set in Africa. She wanted to include more people of color and create stories with Africa as the setting because so few stories were set there. She wrote her first story as a college sophomore and made the setting of her story Nigeria.[7] Her stories place black girls in important roles that are usually given to white characters.[12] Okorafor cites Nigeria as "her muse" as she is heavily influenced by Nigerianfolklore and its rich mythology and mysticism.[12]
Gary K. Wolfe wrote of her work: "Okorafor's genius has been to find the iconic images and traditions of African culture, mostly Nigerian and often Igbo, and tweak them just enough to become a seamless part of her vocabulary of fantastika."[77]
Her work often looks at "weighty social issues: racial and gender inequality, political violence, the destruction of the environment, genocide and corruption" through "the framework of fantasy".[12]
Okorafor shares that while the themes of her stories are often multi-layered, they are always grounded in "stories of the women and girls around me and also within myself".[76]
Okorafor asserts that her work and parental responsibility relate to each other because "writing and being a mother are a part of me, so they are mixed together and balance each other out."[78]
As of 2019, she began strongly rejecting the term "afrofuturism" as a label for her work and coined the terms africanfuturism and africanjujuism instead. In October 2019, she published an essay titled "Defining Africanfuturism" that defines both terms in detail.[3]
Shortly after winning the World Fantasy Award in 2011, Okorafor published an essay "Lovecraft's racism & The World Fantasy Award statuette, with comments fromChina Miéville", in which she reflected upon her conflicting emotions on winning an award in the shape of a large silver bust ofH. P. Lovecraft. She would later voice her support forDaniel José Older's 2014 petition[79] to replace the Lovecraft bust with one ofOctavia Butler. In the essay, she acknowledges both the literary legacy of Lovecraft and his continued influence in the contemporary world of science fiction:
Do I want "The Howard" (the nickname for the World Fantasy Award statuette. Lovecraft's full name is "Howard Phillips Lovecraft") replaced with the head of some other great writer? Maybe. Maybe it's about that time. Maybe not. What I know I want is to face the history of this leg of literature rather than put it aside or bury it. If this is how some of the great minds ofspeculative fiction felt, then let's deal with that ... as opposed to never mention it or explain it away.[79]
Chow-Quesada, Emily (Fall 2024). "The detectives who kill : Black female detectives in the work ofOyinkan Braithwaite and Nnedi Okorafor".Clues.42 (2):98–109.
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