In 2010, Nnedi Okorafo’s Who Fears Death was released and introduced readers to a future Sudan. Who Fears Death follows Onyesonwu as she goes on a journey of discovery, loss, and renewal. She was more than powerful; she was thoughtful, flawed, strong, and remarkable. Five years later, we returned to the themes brought up in Who Fears Death through its prequel, The Book of Phoenix, about a new character, Phoenix, who like Onyesonwu, has been born into a brutal world with powers beyond her understanding. On Okorafor’s blog in 2015 she said, “Who is Phoenix to Onyesonwu and Onyesonwu to Phoenix? You’ll have to read them to find out. Don’t bother going in with expectations; you’ll probably be wrong.”
Reading more than one of Okorafor’s books cues readers into the fact that they are reading something larger than what they see on the page. There’s more being said, referenced, and examined across all of her texts, which is why The Book of Phoenix, though a prequel, felt more like another piece in a puzzle. Following the release of those two books and several others, Okorafor released the Binti series in 2015, 2017, and 2018 all charting the experiences and history of yet another woman. This time she wasn’t being forced into her circumstances; instead, Binti seizes her future before someone else has a chance to crush it. Now, four years later, Okorafor’s recent release Remote Control bridges our current world with her universe.
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