Death of the Author

by

Published by William Morrow.

ISBN:
978-0-06-339114-7
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ASIN:
0063391147
(3 reviews)

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 …

2 editions

reviewed Death of the Author by Nnedi Okorafor

Engaging but uneven

I really enjoyed most of "Death of the Author"; the book-within-the-book was exciting, especially at the beginning. The main character, Zelu, has a lot of depth and feels like a real person. But the conflict with the family and with others about her reaction to disability is baffling. I know I have my own cultural biases but their reaction to assistive devices and prosthetics feels so out of place that it's hard to stay engrossed. But even with that there's a lot to love in this novel, and it's worth picking up even if you haven't dug in to the more fantasy based books by Okrafor.

reviewed Death of the Author by Nnedi Okorafor

Didn't love much about this.

Strong potential in near future Nigerian/American family tensions of over fame and disability, Chicago and African settings, interwoven with a further out robot society facing human-like challenges of witnessing cataclysm. And large parts, especially the more painful, feel like and are author-memoir. So disappointing to dislike most of the characters and their overall arcs, through accident and levels of seeking independence.

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