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A Conversation With Nnedi Okorafor

Nnendi Okorafor attends the 70th Emmy Awards at Microsoft Theater in Los Angeles, California.
Nnendi Okorafor attends the 70th Emmy Awards at Microsoft Theater in Los Angeles, California.

“It is me,” she called. “Death has come to visit.” Those are the first words we hear from our protagonist in author Nnedi Okorafor’s latest work, Remote Control.

Set in a near-future Ghana, the sci-fi novella centers on Sankofa, a pre-teen who becomes an avatar of death after a chance encounter with a mysterious artifact. Her new powers leave her both worshipped and feared, as she journeys to discover what made her this way — and whether she can ever regain her lost identity. 

Okorafor is the author of more than two dozen books, comics and short stories. Two of her most popular works — Who Fears Death and the Binti trilogy — have been optioned by HBO and Hulu. She’s also writing an adaptation of Octavia Butler’s Wild Seed for Amazon.

Find our conversation from 2018 with science fiction writers Nnedi Okorafor, N.K. Jemisin and Noelle Stevenson.

>We talk to Nnedi Okorafor about sci-fi, solitude and our pandemic year.

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Paige Osburn