Africanfuturism is a culturalaesthetic andphilosophy of science that centers on the fusion ofAfrican culture, history, mythology, point of view, with technology based in Africa and not limiting to the diaspora.^[1][2] It was coined by Nigerian American writerNnedi Okorafor in 2019 in a blog post as a single word.^[3] Nnedi Okorafor defines Africanfuturism as a sub-category ofscience fiction that is "directly rooted in African culture, history, mythology and point-of-view..and...does not privilege orcenter the West," is centered with optimistic "visions in the future," and is written by (and centered on) "people of African descent" while rooted in theAfrican continent. As such its center is African, often does extend upon the continent of Africa, and includes theBlack diaspora, including fantasy that is set in the future, making a narrative "more science fiction than fantasy" and typically hasmystical elements.^[4] It is different fromAfrofuturism, which focuses mainly on the African diaspora, particularly the United States. Works of Africanfuturism includescience fiction,fantasy,alternate history,horror andmagic realism.

Writers of Africanfuturism includeNnedi Okorafor,Tochi Onyebuchi,Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki,Tade Thompson,Namwali Serpell,Wole Talabi, andSuyi Davies Okungbowa.^[5][6]

Works of Africanfuturism have long existed and have been assigned to Afrofuturism. Themes of Africanfuturism can be traced back to Buchi Emecheta's 1983 novelThe Rape Of Shavi and Ben Okri's 1991 novelThe Famished Road.^[7]

In 2019 and 2020, African writers began to reject the termAfrofuturism because of the differences between both genres with Africanfuturism focusing more on African point of view, culture, themes and history as opposed to Afrofuturism which covers African diaspora history, culture and themes.^[8] Thespeculative fiction magazineOmenana and theNommo Awards presented by The African Speculative Fiction Society launched in 2017 helped to widen the content of the genre.^[9]

In August 2020, Hope Wabuke, a writer and assistant professor at theUniversity of Nebraska–Lincoln of English and Creative Writing, noted that Afrofuturism, coined byMark Dery, a White critic, in 1993, treatsAfrican-American themes and concerns in the "context of twentieth-century technoculture," which was later expanded byAlondra Nelson, arguing that Dery's conception ofBlackness began in 1619 and "is marked solely by the ensuing 400 years of violation by whiteness" that he portrayed as "potentially irreparable."^[7] Critical of this definition, saying it lacks the qualities of the "Black American diasporic imagination" and ability to conceive of "Blackness outside of the Black American diaspora" or independent fromWhiteness, she noted that "Africanfuturism" is different because it is, according toNnedi Okorafor, more deeply rooted in "African culture, history, mythology and point-of-view as it then branches into the Black diaspora, and it does not privilege or center the West," while explainingAfricanjujuism as a subcategory of fantasy. Wabuke further explains how Africanfuturism is more specific and rids itself of the "othering of thewhite gaze and the de factocolonial Western mindset," free from what she calls the "whiteWestern gaze" and saying this is the main difference "between Afrofuturism and Africanfuturism." She adds that, in her view, Africanfuturism has a different outlook and perspective than "mainstream Western and Americanscience fiction andfantasy" and even Afrofuturism which is "married to thewhiteWestern gaze." Wabuke goes on to explain Africanfuturist and Africanjujuist themes in Okorafor'sWho Fears Death andZahrah the Windseeker,Akwaeke Emezi'sPet, andBuchi Emecheta'sThe Rape of Shavi.^[7]

In February 2021, Aigner Loren Wilson ofTor.com explained the difficulty of finding books in the subgenre because many institutions "treat Africanfuturism and Afrofuturism like the same thing" even though the distinction between them is plain. She said that Africanfuturism is "centered in and about Africa and their people" while Afrofuturism is a sci-fi subcategory which is about "Black people within the diaspora," often including stories of those outside Africa, including in "colonized Western societies.".^[10] Another reviewer called Okorafor'sLagoon, which "recounts the story of the arrival of aliens in Nigeria," as an Africanfuturist work which requires a reader who is "actively engaged in co-creating the alternative future that the novel is constructing," meaning that the reader becomes part of the "creative conversation."^[11]

Africanfuturism literature features speculative fiction which narrates events centered on Africa from an African point of view rather than a Western point of view. Works of Africanfuturism literature are still wrongly categorized as Afrofuturism.^{[citation needed]}

Works of Nigerian American writerNnedi Okorafor are often in the Africanfuturism genre with her works likeWho Fears Death,Lagoon,Remote Control,The Book of Phoenix andNoor. She won aHugo andNebula award for her novellaBinti, the first from theBinti trilogy which features a nativeHimba girl fromNamibia in space.^[12]Tade Thompson won aArthur C. Clarke award for his Africanfuturist novelRosewater about an alien dome in Nigeria^[13] and Zambian writerNamwali Serpell'sThe Old Drift won the same award.

In 2020,Africanfuturism: An Anthology edited byWole Talabi was published byBrittle Paper and as of the end of 2022 is currently still offered for free on its website in celebration of the 10th anniversary of this publisher which has been called "the village square of African literature".^[14][15]Gary K. Wolfe reviewed this anthology in February 2021.^[16] He creditsNnedi Okorafor for coining "Africanfuturism," noting its describes "more Africa-centered SF," although saying he is not sure whether her term "Africanjujuism," a parallel term for fantasy, will catch on. While saying that both are useful, he says that he does not like how they have to "do with the root, not the prefix," with "futurism" only describing a bit of science fiction and fantasy. He still calls the book a "solid anthology," saying it challenges the idea of viewing African science fiction as monolithic. Stories in the book include "Egoli" byT. L. Huchu, "Yat Madit" byDilman Dila, "Behind Our Irises" byTlotlo Tsamaase, "Fort Kwame" by Derek Lubangakene, "Rainmaker" byMazi Nwonwu, "Fruit of the Calabash" by Rafeeat Aliyu, "Lekki Lekki" by Mame Bougouma Diene, and "Sunrise" byNnedi Okorafor.^[16]

WhenTor.com outlined a list of stories and books from the genre as of 2021, Tor also highlightedAfricanfuturism: An Anthology (edited byWole Talabi) along with the individual works ofNamwali Serpell'sThe Old Drift,Nnedi Okorafor'sLagoon, Nicky Drayden'sThe Prey of Gods,Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki'sIfe-Iyoku, the Tale of Imadeyunuagbon, andTochi Onyebuchi'sWar Girls.^[10]

In comics, as of the end of 2022, so far a few Africanfuturism comics exist.Comic Republic Global Network, aLagos-based publisher, is prominent in creating Africanfuturist superheroes likeGuardian Prime.^[17][18]Laguardia, a comic book by Nnedi Okorafor, is associated with Africanfuturism.^[19]

Africanfuturism movies are often scarce.^[20] Films likeBlack Panther have been criticized by some viewers,^[21] who say that their depiction of Africa "differs little from the colonial view".^[1] In recent times, Africanfuturist movies includeHello, Rain,Pumzi, andRatnik. Several Africanfuturism novels have been optioned for live adaptation, includingBinti andWho Fears Death.^[1][20] In 2020,Walt Disney Studios and Pan African company Kugali announced that they would be co-producing an africanfuturist animated science fiction series,Iwájú, inspired by the city ofLagos.^[22][23]

On July 5, 2023,Kizazi Moto: Generation Fire, an Africanfuturist^[24][25][26] animated anthology short film series premiered onDisney+.^[27]Peter Ramsey was picked as executive producer, while Tendayi Nyeke and Anthony Silverston were supervising producers, andTriggerfish was the primary studio, along with otheranimation studios in Africa.^[28][29] Each of the ten films is from anAfrican perspective, on themes such associal media, duality,disability, self-reflection, shared humanity, and other topics, with stories which includetime travel,extraterrestrials, and alternate universes.^[30][25][31]

• University of Calabar, Nigeria's Ojima Sunday Nathaniel & Jonas Egbudu Akung's 2022 article "Afrofuturism and Africanfuturism: Black speculative writings in search of meaning and criteria" inResearch Journal in Advanced Humanities preferentially supporting Okorafor's 'Africanfuturism' "because Dery’s". . ." inappropriate". . . "Afrofuturism is clearly an African-American signification that provides no space for the African imaginary", then their focus seeks more completion in "a different set of criteria for evaluation and categorization of both concepts, and proposes five-point criteria—experience, authorship, language, black heroism and technology for their evaluation.".

• Tor 2021 Guide to Africanfuturism

• AfrikaIsWoke's 2021 article "The Difference Between African Futurism & Afrofuturism" which suggests that 'Black' is the perhaps the common general term comprising what have become narrowed in 'African' and 'Afro' when used as ethnic or racial terms, proceeding from Zambian queerist futurist author Masiyaleti Mbewe's distinction that "differences between African Futurism and Afrofuturism can best be understood as a natural byproduct of the fact that Africans in Africa, and Blacks in the diaspora have different life experiences that stem purely from the fact that they exist in different parts of the world."

• University of Kwazulu-Natal's Brett Taylor Banks' 2021 dissertation on "Okorafor’s Organic Fantasy: An Africanfuturist Approach to Science Fiction and Gender inLagoon." by a European-African, reminding us that Africans now are not only Black, and Olive in the North, just as Americans have for half a millennium been not only Red but now Black, Yellow, White, and Brown, so geopolitical labels in the modern era of pervasive presumption of democracy's desirability deems interracial and genetic society politically correct. Overview page with abstract and link to downloadable copy of the actual dissertation. Notable, Banks "adapt[s] Francis Nyamnjoh’s convivial theory (2015) to estrange postmodernism from its western context, providing an African critical vocabulary".

• University of Ghana's black Nigerian-Finnish and Swedish Minna Salami's article "The Liquid Space where African Feminism and African Futurism Meet" inFeminist Africa, 2021, a journal of the Institute of African Studies and the University of Ghana, by this SOAS, University of London cross-cultural author who dubs herself a "Ms Afropolitan" and has received an Honorary Fellowship in Writing from The Hong Kong Baptist University.

• City College of New York's Damion Kareem Scott's 2021 chapter "Afrofuturism and Black Futurism: Some Ontological and Semantic Considerations" inCritical Black Futures, ed. P Butler.

• Africanfuturism: An Anthology edited by Wole Talabi, 2020, Brittle Paper, a defining collection of these newly named genres, has since October 2020 and is currently still offered for free on the publisher's website in celebration of the 10th anniversary of this publisher which has been called "the village square of African literature".

• Finnish Päivi Väätänen's 2019 'academic article' "Afro- versus Africanfuturism in Nnedi Okorafor’s 'The Magical Negro' and 'Mother of Invention'"

• Botswana-born York University's Pamela Phatsimo Sunstrum's 2013 article "Afro-mythology and African Futurism: The Politics of Imagining and Methodologies for Contemporary Creative Research Practices" in Paradoxa's special publication No. 25 –Africa SF, ed. Mark Bould of UWE Bristol, precursing current diction before 'African' and 'Futurism' were concatenated as an emergent term, though titles by her colleagues in this collection use, in 2013, Technofuture, Afrofuturism and AfroSF, and Bould's introduction uses Africa SF.

• Africanfuturism
• 2019 neologisms
• Art movements
• Culture of Africa
• Science fiction genres
• Pan-Africanism
• Futurism by region
• African literature
• Futurist movements

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