Okorafor’s first memoir hits US stores
Nnedi Okorafor’s first nonfiction, a memoir titled ‘Broken Places & Outer Spaces’, has hit bookstores in the United States. The award-winning US-based science fiction writer made this known on Twitter this week. She wrote: “My memoir ‘Broken Places & Outer Spaces’ is in stores today! My first book of nonfiction! This book focuses on That […]
Nnedi Okorafor’s first nonfiction, a memoir titled ‘Broken Places & Outer Spaces’, has hit bookstores in the United States.
The award-winning US-based science fiction writer made this known on Twitter this week. She wrote: “My memoir ‘Broken Places & Outer Spaces’ is in stores today! My first book of nonfiction! This book focuses on That Summer. I walked into That Summer as a 20-year-old athlete and aspiring entomologist. I flew out of That Summer a stunned writer.”
In a related post, she said, “I’ve been writing this on and off since it all happened. The original manuscript is over 300 pages. I needed to record every detail while they were fresh, so there are parts of this book that I wrote while I still wasn’t quite able to walk.”
Okorafor was a college track star and budding entomologist, but her lifelong battle with scoliosis changed everything. From what was supposed to be a simple operation, she wakes from the surgery to find she can’t move her legs. So, confined to a hospital bed for months, unusual things begin to happen. She experiences strange dreams and sees psychedelic bugs crawl on her hospital walls. She begins to put these into writing and created fantastical stories.
Publishers Weekly said about the new book: “Okorafor’s gripping account of her recovery will inspire any reader,” while Booklist described it as a “riveting testimony to how storytelling can be a force for healing and inspiration, hope and change.”
Recently, after reading a review of her book, Okorafor, in a Facebook post, complained about people forcing the narrative that she started writing science fiction after reading science fiction. She corrected that notion, pointing out that she started writing science fiction because of her many trips to Nigeria to visit family, which exposed her to the presence of technology in the most surprising and rural places. She called on fans and readers to mark her words on the post, and in her then forthcoming TED book ‘Broken Places & Outer Spaces’, and not heed the attempts to twist or flat-out rewrite her words elsewhere.
Okorafor’s works include ‘Lagoon’, ‘Who Fears Death’, ‘What Sunny Saw in the Flames’, and ‘Binti’.