A Conversation with Nnedi Okorafor

In her latest book, The Death of An Author, Nnedi Okorafor explores grief, identity, and disability agency in a seamlessly-woven, braided narrative. I had the privilege of speaking with her to discuss the novel, all things science fiction and Africanfuturism, the term she is credited with coining. 

Divine: Can you talk about your own journey with creation and how your culture and real life enter your work?

Nnedi: I started writing through trauma, so there’s that. When it comes to my culture, though, I didn’t have to consciously imbue my work with it, it’s just there. It comes up naturally, by definition. In a lot of ways, when I’m writing what’s called “science fiction and fantasy,” that’s tied to me being Nigerian American. The way I view the world, the mystical aspects of it, my worldview is shaped by Igbo culture. It’s not intentional; it’s just how I was raised. So when I write stories, the cultural elements naturally come through. The very first stories I wrote were set in Nigeria. When I started writing, lying in a hospital bed, having never written anything before, my mind immediately went there: a character in Nigeria, an Igbo woman. So, it was very organic. The culture comes through simply because of who I am.

Divine: Do you think there’s a cost to storytelling when it’s so connected to your real life and culture?

Nnedi: I don’t really think about it that way. I mean, you could say there’s a cost to spending time writing instead of doing something else. But I don’t frame it like that.

I’m expressing something from within me. If there are negatives, I’ll discover them at some point. They’re inevitable. But they’re not something that would stop me. They’re just part of the terrain.

Divine: You’ve distinguished African Futurism from Afrofuturism, and people still ask you about that distinction. How does Death of the Author relate to African Futurism? And how does centering Africa change the futures you imagine?

Nnedi: African Futurism is rooted in Africa and grows out of that. I may have used the word “center,” but I don’t actually think anything should be centered. It’s more like a plant growing outward. And African Futurism does include the diaspora. People often set up this binary where Afrofuturism is about the diaspora, African Futurism is about Africa, but that’s incorrect. Why would I create the term African Futurism, as someone born and raised in the United States, if it didn’t include the diaspora? I’m Nigerian American. I’ve never lived in Nigeria, but I’ve been many times. My connection to the continent is strong. So African Futurism acknowledges that connection. It’s rooted in Africa but branches into the diaspora. I chose those words very carefully. I don’t like rigid categories because I don’t fit neatly into them. Afrofuturism doesn’t really acknowledge what I do, whereas African Futurism at least nods to it. I’m not at the “center.” I’m somewhere off to the side, but I’m still part of that network of connection. When people say African Futurism excludes the diaspora, they’re misunderstanding the definition. It’s about connection.

Divine: How does Death of the Author fit into that?

Nnedi: It’s funny, the original title was The African Futurist. But that was actually a joke. I was referring to robots or African robots in the future. I realized people would take it literally and get stuck in that conversation, so I changed it. Death of the Author is a much better title because I didn’t want the book to be about that debate. It’s a small conversation compared to what I wanted to explore. At the time, I didn’t even think of the book as African Futurist. Even when I sold it, I resisted that label. But now, with some distance, I can see that it is. In many ways, it’s almost a “how-to” for writing African Futurism. You have Zelu, who doesn’t write science fiction, doesn’t read it and yet, after a deeply emotional moment in her life, something new emerges from her. That reflects how science fiction doesn’t come from a single lineage. There are multiple “bloodlines.” It can arise organically from different worldviews. Zelu draws from her lived experience, her family, her Nigerian background, the emotional intensity of her upbringing. She doesn’t consciously think, “I’m writing science fiction,” but that’s what emerges. That’s African Futurism in action.

Divine: Your book engages deeply with the idea of “the death of the author.” How did that develop for you?

Nnedi: That essay has been in my life for years. I have two master’s degrees and a PhD, so I’ve encountered it constantly. I’ve never liked it. My professors always pushed back when I said that. When I wrote this book, I didn’t sit down intending to engage with that essay. The original title wasn’t even Death of the Author. But the ideas were already in my mind.The book itself is deeply about death on multiple levels. It began with personal loss. My sister passed away, and I started writing just days later. I didn’t know what would come out, but grief, storytelling, and voice were all swirling together. The essay, even though I disliked it, was part of that mental landscape. I’m always curious about what I resist. Why I resist it. So I explored it, even while feeling irritation. Many elements in the book come directly from real experiences. The student who writes a “story” made entirely of quotations—that happened. He even said “death of the author” to me. I wanted to respond exactly the way Zelu does. So the book blends real life with these larger ideas of death, authorship, storytelling, in an organic way.

Divine: The essay often frames things as a binary: author vs. reader. Do you see it that way?

Nnedi: No. I resist binaries in general. They flatten experience.

The idea that it’s either the author’s intention or the reader’s interpretation is uninteresting to me. They feed into each other. Art and life do the same thing. They energize and inspire one another. Why does it have to be one or the other? One can’t exist without the other. And that binary also implies a hierarchy, which is problematic. If the author “dies,” then what is the reader reading? The whole framework feels limiting. It’s just not how storytelling actually works.

Divine: If Barthes is critiquing the myth of the individual, especially in how we interpret art, how does autofiction fit into that? What makes it different?

Nnedi: That’s a good question. I think autofiction complicates that idea rather than escaping it. It highlights how entangled the author and the work really are, even when we try to separate them. But again, I don’t think in binaries. It’s not about eliminating the author or elevating the reader. It’s about recognizing the interplay between all of it: the author, the reader, the text, memory, culture, lived experience. That interplay is where storytelling actually lives.