Zelu is a Nigerian–American lady with a busy, well-qualified family, but she’s the odd one among them. Her younger sister Amarachi is delighted to be marrying, and by now in her thirties, Zelu has decided not to bother. She’ll attend the wedding, wear a nice dress in her wheelchair, and smile. DEATH OF THE AUTHOR is a quote from Roland Barthes, and in this context, it can refer to the literature class from which Zelu is fired. Or it can mean the rejection – again – of her first novel. Or it can suggest that she is quietly drugging herself to death.
We first met Zelu when she was smoking stuff, and it didn’t endear her to me. Between her constant drug habit and her inveterate strong language, she’s not a nice person. Her life isn’t going great. She has not been since she broke her back when she was twelve. But she got a degree and a job. People live with less. Not at any point in the story does Zelu help other people, unless for a family obligation. She devours social media provided it’s about her life and nobody else. In the end, she makes a choice that many would call selfish. But by then, I had got to like and respect her better.
Zelu sits down to write a different story, a better one, and if she’d read any SciFi she would know the theme has been done before, but this is fresh out of her mind and life experience. She writes of robots that are all that’s left on Earth, which could be an allegory for persons using mobility aids, computers and other processes to live their lives. Some of the robots, called Humes, are android-shaped and go around looking to collect leftover human culture. The controlling AIs decide this isn’t wanted, and turn against the Humes. Somehow, the book touches a zeitgeist when released, and Zelu isn’t just an author, but one people recognise. And this provides her with a distinctive offer.
Part of the story is set in Nigeria, on a brief trip, which becomes scary and shows that fame has consequences. Mostly we stay in America, getting to know the rest of the family. These are not your happy supportive family members. Every time something changes, Zelu is told she shouldn’t take a risk, or that it’s all her fault. Her parents want Zelu to do well but on their terms. Her siblings call her selfish, which takes us back to the start.
Interestingly composed, DEATH OF THE AUTHOR by Nnedi Okorafor tells of a woman who lost her mobility and wants to regain it. If she is going to live, part of her life has to die. But when she gains one aspect, she loses momentum. Maybe the message is that we can’t have everything.
In this exhilarating tale by New York Times bestselling and award-winning author Nnedi Okorafor, a disabled Nigerian American woman pens a wildly successful Sci-Fi novel, but as her fame rises, she loses control of the narrative—a surprisingly cutting, yet heartfelt drama about art and love, identity and connection, and, ultimately, what makes us human. This is a story unlike anything you’ve read before.
The future of storytelling is here.
Disabled, disinclined to marry, and more interested in writing than a lucrative career in medicine or law, Zelu has always felt like the outcast of her large Nigerian family. Then her life is upended when, in the middle of her sister’s lavish Caribbean wedding, she’s unceremoniously fired from her university job and, to add insult to injury, her novel is rejected by yet another publisher. With her career and dreams crushed in one fell swoop, she decides to write something just for herself. What comes out is nothing like the quiet, literary novels that have so far peppered her unremarkable career. It’s a far-future epic where androids and AI wage war in the grown-over ruins of human civilization. She calls it Rusted Robots.
When Zelu finds the courage to share her strange novel, she does not realize she is about to embark on a life-altering journey—one that will catapult her into literary stardom, but also perhaps obliterate everything her book was meant to be. From Chicago to Lagos to the far reaches of space, Zelu’s novel will change the future not only for humanity, but for the robots who come next.
A book-within-a-book that blends the line between writing and being written, Death of the Author is a masterpiece of metafiction that manages to combine the razor-sharp commentary of Yellowface with the heartfelt humanity of Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow. Surprisingly funny, deeply poignant, and endlessly discussable, this is at once the tale of a woman on the margins risking everything to be heard and a testament to the power of storytelling to shape the world as we know it.
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