The spin-off of Black Panther: how the author Nnedi Okorafor found his identity

The science fiction and fantasy American writer Nnedi Okorafor is in great demand. She is the award-winning author of 12 books, the brain of an upcoming Black Panther derivative series, and one of her stories will soon be adapted to television by the creator of Game of Thrones.

But its climb to the top was not easy. The Okorafor family was among the first black families to move to a white suburb of Chicago's suburbs in the 1980s, and her clbadmates and teachers went out of their way to make "clear that To be black would be less than.

These are his frequent trips to Nigeria, from where his parents come, who founded him.

"And that way, I've also experienced a whole country of people who looked like me, where racism did not exist, where I had family." ", she says.

These travels developed a love for "the stories of my own people, mythologies, cosmologies," which she began to incorporate into her fictional works.

Okorafor used this perspective to become one of the most innovative sci-fi and fantasy writers of his generation.

She produces speculative fiction for young people and adults that goes beyond the Eurocentric world view. Just think of Harry Potter, Star Wars and Lord of the Rings.

Non-Western Mythologies

Okrafor's stories have African frames, African characters, and use African myths and mythologies. They explore technology, mysticism, immigration, corruption, genocide and gender inequality.

She brought a panoply of African characters to a genre often accused of excluding people of color – a 2016 report revealed speculative fiction published in 63 magazines, 38 were written by black authors. A similar trend can be observed in the film industry.

Okrafor says she has personal experience of "bleaching". An early cover drawing for her novel Shadow Speaker showed a white girl, she says, despite the Nigerian book's heroine.

The publisher changed the cover after she complained.

In his new award-winning video Binti, Okorafor explores the immigrant's perspective with his protagonist – a young woman from the Himba people of Namibia, who defies his family and accepts a place in a prestigious intergalactic academy.

I am interested in the stories of imperfect African women and girls because I think their stories must be told and in these stories they must win. "[Image]

The Namibian Himba people inspire the new Binti

A shelf full of awards – including the Wole Soyinka Award for African Literature and the prestigious Hugo and Nebula Awards – is testament to its success.

The talents of Okorafor have now attracted the attention of television producers. His 2010 novel Who Fears Death, based in a post-apocalyptic Sudan, is being adapted for HBO and George RR Martin, author of Game of Thrones, will co-executive producer

Slate of projects & # 39;

Okorafor again made headlines when it was announced that she would be writing a spin-off of the Black Panther comic series focusing on Shuri, the genius of technology and the main character's sister , T & # 39; Challa. "Shuri is amazing, she's a princess but she's also a very dynamic character and we need to see what this smart African girl is doing beyond her brother," Okorafor told BBC Radio Focus on Africa.

This is not his first stint with Marvel. She contributed to a bi-weekly series entitled Black Panther: Long Live the King and wrote Wakanda Forever.

She also has the director of the LGBT Rafiki love story, which was the first Kenyan film selected by Cannes and then banned in Kenya as a close collaborator.

"I can not give details, but Wanuri [Kahiu] and I have a list of projects we are working on together," she says.

The Okorafor trip as a writer began at age 19. That year, she was paralyzed from the waist up after an operation to correct scoliosis.

Distraught as she realized that her fledgling athlete career would be cut off, Okorafor began writing news to occupy her time.

When she recovered, she took a creative writing clbad at the university.

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Her rise to the world of speculative fiction was "gradual," she says, mainly because no one knew how to place her work.

By the time she published her first novel Zahrah the Windseeker in 2005, critics have struggled to understand it, she says.

"It was science-fiction for young adults with a Nigerian mysticism, mixed with fantasy and written by an American Nigerian – I confused and many did not know how to read me.

" But over the years, the more I write, the better known I became. I was slowly figured out, so I enjoyed it. "

" Multi-Armed Creature "

Her style has since been described as an Afrofuturist, a genre with which she has conflicting relationships.

OkayAfrica, Okorafor Explained that" Afrofuturism is a label that is anchored in the United States "and generally implies" Afro-American visions of the future … like Sun Ra and P-Funk, and later like Outkast, with their album ATLiens "

Now she is resigned." At this stage, I call Afrofuturist, whether I like it or not, "she adds.

" To say that I will not do it will only create more confusion. So, I love the term, reluctantly, and my conversation with the problem is dynamic. It changes with time. "

"My literary roots are not here in the United States, they are in Nigeria," Okorafor explains.

"It's there that my inspiration for writing science fiction began, but the etiquette continued to be slapped on me … With the announcement of Shuri, I'm 39, have seen many sources of information call Afrofuturist writer 19659007] "I hate to quarrel over categories," she adds.

"The only reason I'm doing [so] is that I feel that these categories and labels can cause people to misinterpret my work. Labels aside, Okrafor believes that science fiction will play an invaluable role in Africa.

"African science fiction is a weapon of the armed creature that will solve the continent's problems," she says of the genre that has inspired innumerable inventions, including motorized costumes across video phones.

"[It] pushes the imagination, concentrates on the possibility, and is an essential tool for finding solutions to problems that may seem impossible to solve."