Death of the Author (Deluxe Limited Edition)

Nigerian American author Zelu is not dead, although her career might be. While at her sister’s wedding, surrounded by extended family who continually poke at Zelu’s unmarried status and her paraplegia, she learns that she’s been fired from teaching creative writing; her novel is rejected on the same day. She pours her angst and frustration into a novel utterly outside her wheelhouse and writes a book that becomes the literary sci-fi blockbuster of the century. Success in a realm that Zelu’s family refuses to understand doesn’t ease any of her aches, but it sets her on a new trajectory towards the stars, even as the novel within her story irrevocably alters readers’ perceptions of everything that came before. Okorafor’s (Shadow Speaker) latest tells two fascinating stories that muddle questions of creativity and creation, even as it dives deeply into the price of fame, cancel culture, what the children of the diaspora owe their places of family origin, and the constant criticism directed at professional women. She wraps it all into an epic about love, friendship, and the cost of survival.