Afrofuturism: Nnedi Okorafor on African Science Fiction

In Nnedi Okorafor's novel Lagoon, the Nigerian city of Lagos is portrayed as a living, breathing character with its own unique vitality and complexity, serving as the central setting where three ordinary citizens—soldier Auu, hip-hop artist Anthony, and marine biologist Adora—are drawn together by fate to experience first contact with alien ambassadors who emerge from the sea; unlike traditional alien invasion narratives, this story emphasizes Lagos' rich cultural tapestry, addressing the often-overlooked reality that Western audiences typically only notice major events in African cities through viral internet content, while the aliens themselves feel they have found their true home in this dynamic metropolis of 20 million people.

Nnedi Okorafor's Lagoon is a science fiction novel that explores first contact between aliens and Lagos, Nigeria, using a multi-perspective narrative (the 'Roshaman effect') to show how different characters—including humans, a swordfish, a bat, and a tarantula—experience the same events, revealing universal human reactions of curiosity, fear, anger, religious fervor, and greed when facing the unknown; the novel challenges stereotypes about African cultures while examining how societal factors like spirituality, education levels, and institutional preparedness shape collective responses to extraordinary events.

Nnedi Okorafor's 'Lagoon' demonstrates how literature can challenge human-centered perspectives by centering non-human narrators. The novel opens with a swordfish attacking an oil pipeline in Lagos Nigeria, using non-human perspective to reveal sensorial limitations of human perception. By depicting bat echolocation and alien communication, the novel tests the limits of human understanding and language. This approach, influenced by Thomas Nagel's philosophy on bat consciousness, argues that meaningful interspecies understanding requires taking up other beings' points of view, challenging anthropocentric assumptions about who can know and be known.

Environmental justice movements have reshaped environmentalist thinking to move away from generalizations about 'the human' and instead consider which humans most contribute to environmental crises and which suffer the most dire consequences. Speculative novelists have taken on this question in both realist and non-realist registers. Nnedi Okorafor's 'Lagoon' (2014) questions environmental and justice issues through speculative fiction motifs. Set in Lagos, it portrays oil pollution via a swordfish's viewpoint and focuses on aliens whose arrival leads to Nigeria abolishing extractive industries and converting to other technologies. Okorafor splits focalization between multiple characters to portray Lagos's diversity. The alien Ayodele, who appears as an African woman, announces they have not come to colonize. Okorafor inverts the alien-as-colonizer metaphor to create an allegory of Africa's re-colonization by Africans. Three elements emerge as crucial: technology change from without, change propelled by Africans' own knowledge and power, and connection with nature and other species. Kim Stanley Robinson's 'New York 2140' and 'The Ministry for the Future' reimagine capitalism through speculative fiction.

Binti is a science fiction novella following a 16-year-old Himba girl who defies her people's tradition of staying in one place to attend university. The story examines academic privilege and the power institutions wield over society, questioning who is studying and who is the studied. It explores what institutions consider acceptable to study and the methods used in academic study. The narrative addresses topics concerning universities, academics, and scholars, presenting a critical examination of educational systems and their impact on different groups of people. The book raises important questions about who has access to education and how academic institutions shape knowledge and society.

Science fiction serves as a powerful tool for social commentary, allowing writers to examine complex real-world issues like technology dependence, corporate control, and refugee experiences through imaginative and fantastical frameworks; this approach, exemplified by South African authors like Lauren Beukes, enables fresh perspectives on contemporary problems by reframing them through speculative fiction, making difficult topics more accessible and thought-provoking for readers.

African science fiction authors are increasingly imagining cities and mega cities, with notable differences from Western perspectives. Authors like Nnedi Okorafor (Nigerian-American), Tade Thompson (Nigerian), and Nick Wood (South African anti-apartheid activist) are producing significant work. A distinctive feature of African and Southeast Asian science fiction is thinking about the coincidence of technology, plant life, animal life, and human life together - treating animals as citizens of the city and future. This multi-species approach represents innovative thinking about urban futures that differs from Western traditions focused primarily on human-centric urban development.

Science fiction author Lauren Beukes shares her creative process, emphasizing that successful writing requires balancing disciplined daily practice with flexibility, using techniques like visual timeline mapping for complex narratives, maintaining social connections to avoid isolation, and trusting readers' intelligence by avoiding excessive exposition; she also discusses how her grounded, socially conscious approach to science fiction—using speculative elements to explore real-world issues like segregation and social divides—differs from purely escapist storytelling.

Black speculative fiction is an umbrella term encompassing science fiction, fantasy, and horror genres where people from the African Diaspora are prominently featured; it includes Afrofuturism (a cultural aesthetics and philosophy coined by Mark Derry that reimagines futures from Black perspectives), African futurism (a sub-genre coined by Nnedi Okorafor specifically rooted in African culture, history, and mythology), and Black horror (a genre exploring diverse topics within Black culture including mysticism and folklore); notable authors include Octavia Butler, N.K. Jemisin, Tomi Adeyemi, and Victor LaValle, with key works such as 'Invisible Man,' 'Children of Blood and Bone,' and 'The Ballad of Black Tom' demonstrating how Black speculative fiction challenges historical underrepresentation of Black people in genre literature.

Rosewater (2016) by Tade Thompson is a hard sci-fi novel with psychic first contact thriller vibes, book one of the Wormwood trilogy. Set in near-future Nigeria, it follows a government agent with psychic abilities investigating a mysterious dome that's changing humans and secrets that could reshape humanity. Though it later won the 2019 Arthur C. Clark Award, at release Rosewater had modest Goodreads visibility and few genre nominations. Its potent blend of Afrofuturism and alien mystery kept it largely hidden from mainstream science fiction discussions.

The video explains Afrofuturism as a term first used in the early 1990s by Mark Dery in his essay 'Black to the Future.' The concept involves mixing aesthetics from Black culture with science fiction, expressing itself in literature, music, visual art, cinema, and fashion. The video notes that Afrofuturism became popular in 2018 with the release of Black Panther, featuring the fictional nation of Wakanda as a technologically advanced African country. The video describes Wakanda as a representation of what Africa might have become if not colonized.

Afrofuturism, while focused on the future, actually occurs in the present and reflects on the past, bringing to light themes of Black diaspora, colonialism, and slavery. The movement addresses ongoing social issues including racism and the denial of historical atrocities. Afrofuturism exists across multiple artistic domains: music (from Sun Ra to Janelle Monáe), visual arts (Betye Saar's photography, Lina Victoria's jewelry), and fashion. Artists like Betye Saar reimagined scenes of colonization while incorporating present-day elements, creating collages that blend past and present. This artistic approach serves as both a critique of current societal injustices and a vision of possibility, imagining futures where Black people are present and their ancestral cultures remain vibrant.

Sun Ra, a pioneering American musician and futurist, articulated that the Earth is a cruel planet where Black people suffer in all times and spaces. His core concept was 'space' - creating an 'alleged space' or 'your space' where Black people can exist safely. This idea of leaving Earth to find other universes and spaces became a guiding principle for Afrofuturist artistic production.

The video describes Afrofuturism as a cultural movement involving 'new black culture' and 'new artistic movements both of sight and sound' that spread throughout the nation. The content references the 'Herald of Afrofuturism' and describes how this cultural revolution 'uplifts all that is black as a paragon of human experience.' The speaker details Sun Ra's declaration that 'space is the place for our race' and the establishment of the Afro-Saturn pilgrimage. The content describes Sun Ra's claim that he 'came from Saturn' and the plans to build a 'Bass Pro pyramid' in Memphis. The speaker discusses the space program as a means of achieving racial liberation and cosmic expansion, with significant benefits including division speed, construction speed, and research speed bonuses.