The New Yorker Radio Hour - Nnedi Okorafor on Sci-Fi Through an African Lens

Episode Date: January 11, 2022

Nnedi Okorafor, a recipient of the prestigious Hugo Award, is a prolific writer of science-fiction and fantasy novels for adults and young adults. She spoke with Vinson Cunningham about how her Nigerian American heritage influenced her interest in fantastical worlds. “It’s part of the culture—this mysticism,” she says. “I wanted to write about those mystical things that people talked about but didn’t talk about because they were mysterious and interesting, and sometimes forbidden.” Her novel “Akata Woman,” which comes out this month, is the third in a series that also acknowledges complicated relationships among peoples of the African diaspora. Plus, Julian Lucas is a passionate gamer, with a particular interest in video games as a form of landscape art. He walks David Remnick through the forthcoming game Norco, a highly anticipated thriller set in coastal Louisiana. New Yorker Radio Hour listeners, we want to hear from you.  We have a few questions about the show and how you listen to it. The survey takes about twenty minutes, and your feedback will help us make our podcast better.  Take the survey here.

This is The New Yorker Radio Hour, a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker. Before she started writing, Nettia Corafer was a young athlete and a very good one. Yeah, I played semi-pro tennis and, you know, I was a track star, all of that. She began writing when she was in college after her life had changed suddenly and profoundly. I first started telling stories after a really, you know, traumatic kind of thing because it was like I was an athlete. and then I had to have this spinal surgery that left me. There were complications, and the main complication was it left me paralyzed from the waist down. But the way that I brought myself from the darkness during all that was, you know, I found storytelling.

I haven't stopped writing since I started writing in that hospital bed. As soon as I discovered it, it was just, it's what I do. O'Corifer regained her ability to walk and kept on writing. She got a PhD in literature and began to publish. She's the author now of a long list of fantasy and sci-fi books for adults and young adults, along with Black Panther comics for Marvel. And her book, Akata Woman, comes out this month. It's the third in a series.

It's about a teenager named Sunny, who's Nigerian American, just like A Korfer herself. But Sunny has moved to Nigeria, and she's discovered that she's got magical powers. Nettia Korfer spoke recently with the New Yorker. Vincent Cunningham. The modes that you work in, science fiction and fantasy, how did you arrive in that place? I grew up reading everything. I had this kind of weird habit of going into the library

and not looking at the category. You know, I didn't know when I migrated into the adult section. I was just like looking at the books, no matter what the genre was, you know, if it was a good story, if it attracted me, I would read that. I'm sure some of the fantasy and science fiction narratives influenced me, but it wasn't like in a conscious way. I was attempting at first to write memoir and nonfiction. And there's something about the way that I just naturally viewed the world that caused that nonfiction that I was trying to write.

You know, I'm trying to write about, you know, personal stories that happened to me. but something about the way that I naturally view the world made me write them in a certain way, where someone else would read it and be like, oh, this is fantasy. And I'm like, no, it's not. I was writing what I was seeing. So it's like, so that was where the fantastical aspect came from. And also a lot of it comes from being Nigerian American. And so like from a young age, my parents were taking my siblings and I back to Nigeria

to meet with our relatives and kind of know our heritage and all of that. And so whatever we would go, we would encounter, because it's part of the culture, this mysticism. And like, it was just normal. It was normal. But because we were American Nigerians, it was new to us. And we noticed it. And so, like, for me, when I started writing, those things came forward very quickly. The science fiction part, like I said, I grew up reading some, but the genre of science fiction did not attract me because I wasn't seeing, I didn't need to see reflections

of myself per se, but I needed to feel like I could exist in those worlds, possibly exist. And so I'd read these narratives and they just came across as very cold, white, and male. And so I couldn't connect very well with the science fiction that was reading. So it wasn't like a big genre for me. It was those trips to Nigeria that did it. We would go, we'd stay in Lagos, which is this big grand city and very technologically advanced, all of that. And then we would go to my parents' ancestral villages, which were far more rural. And so as I got older, I started noticing technology, in particular cell phones, these bits of advanced,

chargeable technology that were portable, that were showing up in these very rural areas. And I was just intrigued by it. I'm like, how come no one's writing about this? And the impact it's having on the ways people are thinking here. Like, what's going to come out of that? I started thinking that. And then that led me to start thinking, what's the future going to look like here? I wanted to talk to you about the title of these books because, as far as I understand it, Akata is like a slightly derogatory term that Nigerians use for American blacks.

And of course, intra-diasporic conflict is one of the things that I'm most interested in. And it's really interesting to think about those lines. How was it? You mentioned kind of feeling like an outsider when you would go to Nigeria because you are sort of growing up as an American kid. but of course, I'm sure the converse was true that, like, even among black kids in America, there was an aspect of your blackness that didn't line up with theirs. How did you navigate that, like life within a diaspora? And how did that just sort of make you start up your process of thinking about these issues?

Yeah, it was everything. Like, this conversation was everything. Like, even before I became a writer, it was really important, especially my sisters and I, this is something we were always talking about. the complexity of it. First, I want to address the word Akata, right? So Akata is a terrible word. It's a terrible word.

It's a horrible, horrible word. And the thing is, when you talk to some Nigerians, they'll be like, oh, no, it's a neutral word. It just describes black Americans, and it's fine. Anyone who has been called that term and fits into the category of the definition knows that it is not a nice word. It's not a nice word.

It's a derogatory term for black Americans, but that also includes Nigerian Americans as well. So this is a word that I have grown up hearing and being called and grappling with and yelling about. And so when I wrote the first one, Akata Witch, in the book itself, it wasn't that she was called Akata Witch. It was originally Akata, B-I-T-C-H. That was the, you know, that was the term because that's the term that I actually knew. And then I was called in a kata by some man Because I was He thought I was mouthing off

And he's like, oh, you American girls, you just have no respect for what And he called me that and I got angry And I'm like, I'm putting that in a title. I'm going to be the first person to put that word in a title of a book. And so it was like it was like a kind of a taking back And it was me being audacious. And so I've kept it. And so, and then.

then in the United States, especially in my younger years in South Holland, Illinois, which was the south suburb of Chicago, which in the 80s was all white. So it was like, we would hear the N-word everywhere from teachers, yelled out of cars, from best friends, all kinds of things. So we've got that going on. And then a few years later, we moved to a more diverse part of the suburbs. And that's where we encountered African Americans who then would call us African-Americans. who then would call us African booty scratcher and make fun of our names. So it was like all this cultural stuff. My siblings and I, we would take it in.

We had each other, so we'd always talk about it and be like, you know, this is confusing. What are we? Where do we fit? We don't fit anywhere. And then at some point, we just got comfortable not fitting in anywhere, but still having that commonality. So that's like a conversation we've been having forever. and we're very secure in who we are.

And so these are like things that I like to write about and I like to play around with them. And Sonny definitely has those conversations and has them honestly. Sunny is the main character in a new book. She is the so-called Akata woman. She's Nigerian-American, just like you. And this issue you're talking about

of distinctive black communities, it reminds me of a term that you've coined to describe your work. African futurism. This came about as I understand it as a response to the label of Afro Futurism, which you used to subscribe to. It's become sort of bogus term when we talk about black sci-fi in the U.S. But you wrote a blog post that is to me sort of a manifesto, and it says, actually, I'm

trying to do something different. So what did you think was causing your work to be misunderstood under the label that we know Afro Futurism? Yeah, I think that a lot of the... the misunderstandings of what I'm trying to say come from what are called the diaspora wars. And it's like, you know, everyone wants their stories told. Everyone wants their stories to be important and significant. And it's caused a lot of, a lot of, this is not a word, but I'm going to say it anyway,

territoriality. I'm tracking that. That sounds right for me. Yeah, you know what I say. I should do. Everyone's being very territorial. And I remember it just came because, you know, I had an issue because I was seeing, I was seeing black science fiction being couched in terms of the United States.

Like the United States is focal point and it is the majority of the stories are coming from the United States. So it's like images, like imaginings of the future were coming from one part of the world where the majority of black people are not. And like I think a lot of people forget that the majority of black people are on the continent of Africa. And that's fine, you know. Yeah. That makes sense. And I remember I'd said this was what caused a lot of problems. I had said that the majority of Afro-Futurism should be written by people who are on the continent of Africa.

When I said that, there was a huge backlash. I had a lot of people, a lot. I'm talking probably in the thousands, telling me, this is ours. We're Americans. We're black Americans, and this is ours. This is our. Afro-futurism is ours. And so once I started hearing that, I'm like, okay, that's fine. Okay, so that's when I knew there needed to be another term.

There needed to be a more diverse way of looking at this because it's a big world. culturally is a big one. And I'm saying this as an as an America. Yeah. Yeah. The more views, the better, the more angles. Right. Right. I do want to talk to you about Black Panther because obviously you've, you've written several story arcs of Black Panther, but you've also articulated some critiques of how it's come out into the world, especially in recent years. I'd love if you could just talk about that, maybe through the lens of African futurism. Maybe this is part of the story here. Yeah. Yeah. So I've written, gosh, I've written a few Black Panther comics, and then I wrote a shuri.

One of my favorite characters, yeah. Yeah, me too, me too. When Marvel asked me to write in particular to Chala, and mind you, I have to say this, I'm the first woman who wrote Tichala, you know. When they asked me, though, it wasn't like an instant yes. It wasn't like, oh, my God, yes. It was, I had to think about it because, I mean, I love the character of Tachala, but I had some issues with the concept of Wakanda.

I had some issues. And the main one is that it's, you know, it's this small, the small African country. And it's technologically advanced. It's one of the wealthiest nations. And it was there during colonialism and all these other. And they didn't help with any of that. So I'm like, this is problem. And I'm not sure.

And then I also have issues with just monarchies in general. Always had issues with them. And kings and queens, I don't write kings and queens. And there's a reason for that. But so I had to think about it. What led me to say yes was that I, it was the, it was Tchala, the character. You know, and how he, his constant conflict is between being, you know, being king and the Black Panther and then also his personal individual. So it's like community versus individual in that conflict.

And that's a conflict that I can relate to and understand very deeply. It's a very kind of African and a diasporic issue. So I was like, okay, that was my in. And in the film, it was like that that Tichala was very similar to the one that I had imagined and the one that had been in the comics as well. So it was really nice to, oh, Chadwick was such a good Tichala, you know. So, yeah, it was good. It was good.

Yeah, it was wonderful. Is there something that you've learned from your readers, especially your younger readers, that gives you a sense of what, I mean, that makes you speculate about how that future might be and how, have you learned about them something that gives you hope for the future?

Yeah, I just feel like the younger generation, especially readers, are breaking molds in this way that I envy. I'm like, man, that would, That would have been so cool when I was a kid just to not have to deal with those molds that I had to fight my way out of. But they're, they're like breaking and, like, breaking and destroying molds around, like, gender, sexuality, just being. You could be so many, you could just be, like, I was an athlete who was a bookworm, who was Nigerian American. You just had all these, like, and those were.

are all like different boxes. And it's like now you it's it's there's just an openness to different types of people that I that I find I find that very hopeful. And I hope it's not something that you just have as a kid. And then once you enter the workforce, you harden up and and shed all of that. But, um, but that's something like that that openness and, and and willingness to let people be who they are. That's the biggest thing. You have given me reason to hope. Thank you.

Thank you so much for talking to us. This has been delightful. Thanks for having me. This is great. The New Yorker's Vincent Cunningham talking with Nettia Corifer. This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. More to come. This is the New Yorker Radio Hour.

I'm David Remnant. Julian, here's what I got to admit to you. I played Pac-Man like 14. times in a bar, you know, and that's it. I don't know anything about games. You mean you don't have a PS5 in your office? Is that a nuclear reactor of some kind? Just the other day, I caught up with my colleague Julian Lucas. Julian writes for us about culture in many forms, about books, visual art, technology, but I didn't realize until now that he's also pretty passionate about gaming. Over the holidays, like all too many of us, Julian was isolated with

COVID. Thankfully, not too serious a case, but he had a lot of extra time on his hands. One thing that I've always loved about games since I was very young, you know, some people hear the word gamer and they think like first person shooters or something like World of Warcraft, I was always a lover of adventure games and strategy games, basically anything with a map. And I sort of rediscovered that delight in isolation on Christmas and other days. during the holidays, playing a game called No Man Sky. It's a game that originally came out in 2016, a fairly high-profile space exploration game.

And its kind of distinctive feature is that its universe is theoretically infinite. So one of the things that I love about the game is that you can just point yourself in a particular direction land on a planet and immediately begin discovering things. It's almost like you're Adam in the book of Genesis, because not only can you discover plants and animals, but you can give them names, upload them, and then other players can find them,

which to me is exciting. So you obviously didn't play just that one game the entire length of the break and your unfortunate encounter with COVID. What else did you play? So more and more games are also allowing developers to do something that's closer to landscape art, something that's about where they come from or a particular landscape and trying to convey its atmosphere. And that's certainly the case with this indie game Norco.

So it's a point-and-click adventure, a kind of old genre of game. and it's set in the town of Norco, Louisiana. And before I talk about the game, I have to talk a little bit about the place. It's a town a few miles up river from New Orleans, and it's essentially a small suburb with a massive shell oil refinery surrounding it. And I went there in 2019 when I was reporting on Dred Scott's slave rebellion reenactment, And I had the chance to meet the developer of this game.

He goes by the pseudonym Yutes, and he grew up in Norco. His family works in the petrochemical industry. And he wanted to create a game essentially that captured the sense of loving a landscape that, in a real sense, was destroying itself. Norco is about a young woman who is living in a dystopian near future United States and she's coming home to Norco because her mother has died. And when she returns to the town, she discovers that her mother was researching something mysterious having to do with a local oil company, which is called Shield in the game and

is quite clearly based on Shell. What are we seeing here? So this is the sort of landscape of Norco. We saw the skyline of the refinery. We saw the highway that goes over the swamps in Lake Ponta Train. And now we're seeing scenes from this childhood home of the main character, who's kind of a characteristic home for the area. And it's really done in this pixel.

art style, which has become very popular, both because there's a lot of nostalgia for the video games of the 80s and 90s, and also because it's a form which makes it very easy for indie developers to create something on their own without the help of a large studio. And, you know, this Norco is an example of a game that you might not see at a major studio, because it is so particular, and it is so much the results of one designer's vision. So as in the movie business, we've gone from the dominance or the complete hegemony of the big studios to the rise of the indie film

as it was, I don't know, a generation ago. Absolutely. That's the moment that's happening in games. And actually, it's funny that you mentioned film because, you know, the film industry has taken notice of this. And actually, Norco won the Tribeca Film Festival inaugural prize for a game last year. So the film festival world is taking notice of games like this. Julian, those of us who have not been paying sufficient attention to games are stuck in the

past and think of them as, you know, competitive games, shooting games, blowing stuff up, you versus me, et cetera, et cetera. It seems to me that the games that you are exploring or most enraptured with have nothing to with these instincts? No, I think, you know, people make various arguments for what makes games special as a medium, what they can do that other forms cannot. And one of them for me is just the ability to explore a landscape in a way that is actually self-directed.

And, you know, a line that often comes to mind when I'm playing No Man Sky in particular from one of my favorite poets, Derek Walcott, In one of his poems, he wrote, for no one had yet written of this landscape that it was possible. And he's writing, of course, about St. Lucia, his home island. But, you know, it captures for me, if I can take it out of context, the feeling of newness and the feeling of really forming a relationship with a world that is in a very real sense your own that games can provide. Fascinating. Julian Lucas, thanks so much. Thanks so much for having me.

You can find everything that Julian Lucas has written for us at New Yorker.com. He talked about No Man's Sky from 2016 and Norco. A demo version is coming out this month from the group called Geography of Robots. That's the New Yorker Radio Hour for today. I'm David Remnick. Thanks for joining us. And I hope the year is somehow getting off to a decent start for you. See you next time. The New Yorker Radio Hour is a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker.

Our theme music was composed and performed by Merrill Garbus of Tune Arts, with additional music by Alexis Quadrado. This episode was produced by Alex Barron, Emily Boutin, Ave Carrillo, Calaliyah, David Krasnow, Gauphin and Putubuele, Louis Mitchell, Michelle Moses, and Stephen Valentino. With additional help from Harrison Keatline, and welcome this week to the newest member of the team, Breda Green. The New Yorker Radio Hour is supported in part by the Trurina Endowment Fund.