I know it’s only Jan. 15, but I feel confident in saying that I’ve already found one of my favorite books of the year. Nnedi Okorafor’s Death of the Author, out now, is a genre-defying metafiction about the author of a hit sci-fi book, the stories she tells, and the stories others tell about her.
The anchor of the story is Zelu, a daughter of Nigerian immigrants who hits rock bottom when she’s fired from her job as an adjunct professor and receives the 10th rejection of a novel she’s worked on for years. Zelu has used a wheelchair since she was 12, and her family has always been condescendingly overprotective — never mind that they’ve never seen value in her creative pursuits to begin with. So, not feeling like she can turn to her family for comfort, a dejected Zelu throws herself into writing a new novel unlike any world she’s imagined before. The result is Rusted Robots, a sci-fi story set in post-apocalyptic Nigeria about a robot dedicated to collecting stories that develops an unlikely bond with an AI. The pair’s loyalty to one another is built on tenuous foundations, as both their kinds willfully ignore a uniting threat in favor of escalating the tribalistic warfare between the body-having and body-eschewing automations.
When Rusted Robots becomes a global hit, suddenly Zelu is lavished with wealth, fame, and opportunities, including the chance to get a set of experimental exoskeleton legs. Everyone in Zelu’s life tells her not to get them — skeptical of their safety, deriding the attention they’d bring her and their family, and, most hurtfully, questioning what makes her so special. But Zelu has never allowed the opinions of others or social conventions to sway her from her desires. However, with the “exos” comes another wave of notoriety and scrutiny, and so goes the cycle of Zelu’s life. With every stride she takes to reclaim and redefine her identity, she bears the exhaustion of having to endlessly defend it — from her family, her partner, her fans, the press, and strangers.
Zelu’s story is interwoven with excerpts from Rusted Robots and interviews with her family members, with the three modes of storytelling working in harmony to tell a larger narrative about the web of creation, intent, and meaning that transpires between author, art, and others. Through Rusted Robots, we get deeper insights into how Zelu views her relationship to herself, her body, her culture, and the world. And through the interviews, we see how those closest to Zelu view her, and the otherwise invisible impact she’s had on their lives and perspectives.
Death of the Author is a book that, like Zelu, defies any attempt to place it in a single box, and begs to be discussed. I can’t say it’s the book by Okorafor that I love the most (it might not even be the book of hers that I love the most released this year), but it’s the one I’m most eager for others to read. There’s so much in this story to examine, critique, and appreciate. (The ending, in particular, is bound to be divisive, and I’m still sifting through my own feelings about it, in full transparency.) But it’s always exciting when one of your favorite authors does something completely unexpected and so palpably personal. So yes, I don’t care how early into 2025 it is, I’m calling it: Death of the Author is one of this year’s most intriguing new releases, and one I look forward to discussing again and again in the months to come.
This post was originally published on here
