DEATH OF THE AUTHOR

A paraplegic Nigerian American writer finds her life turning into a rollercoaster ride.

Zelu has always been a storyteller, but she finds herself plummeting while she’s in Trinidad and Tobago for her sister’s destination wedding—she’s fired from an already-deflating job as an adjunct writing professor in Chicago, and gets another rejection for the novel she’s been writing for 10 years. She’s hit rock bottom, her dreams and livelihood pulled out from under her in one fell swoop. In the thick of this lavish family affair, with nothing to lose, she steals away and begins writing a strange tale about the war-torn lives of rusted robots on a far future Earth after human civilization has died out. It’s a story that resonates more than any of her previous work, and she goes on to finish it, sell it, and watch it become a bestseller. Okorafor’s deeply felt meta-narrative weaves back and forth between Zelu’s life and her epic novel about a Hume robot, with a metal body resembling the human form, and a Ghost—an AI with no body—as they begin to challenge the staunch tribalism in robot society. In her life, Zelu struggles with family dynamics across generations and continents, a career that suddenly propels her to global fame, and decisions that will shape her journey as a disabled woman. Zelu’s story and the book-within-a-book echo each other, as characters in both narratives learn to overcome shame, reach forgiveness and self-acceptance, and commit to life-giving purpose; fundamentally, in both parts of the book, Okorafor explores what it means to be human. While Zelu’s novel imagines a future without human beings on Earth, the near-future world she lives in feels distinctly and promisingly within reach: It’s a place where self-driving electric cars make cities more accessible, people with movement disabilities are supported by robotic engineering, and families with deeply held patriarchal customs are brought closer together rather than torn apart when confronting these dynamics.

All-out Okorafor—her best yet.