Who Fears Death



from DAW Books

Release Date: June 1, 2010

 

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"I love the way Nnedi Okorafor writes, the precise, steely short sentences like blows to the body, the accumulation of experiences that lead to inspired insights, and the strangeness and beauty of an Africa both imagined and real. Perception, courage, and grace illuminate WHO FEARS DEATH."

-Peter Straub, bestselling and award-winning author of over 18 books including A Dark Matter, In the Night Room and Ghost Story and co-author with Stephan King of The Talisman and Black House



"Nnedi Okorafor is American-born but her Nigerian blood runs strong, lacing her work with fantasy, magic and true African reality. Many people need to read WHO FEARS DEATH, it's an important book."

-Nawal El Saadawi, bestselling and award-winning Egyptian feminist writer and activist, author of Woman at Point Zero



"She never stops saying "IT’S THERE," until the tale is finished. Then, she exhales and you breath...in and out...lost in thought. You say to yourself, this is a voice of our past, our present, our future. Our unopened-open existence. Our secrets! The voice of Nnedi Okorafor does not obey the rules of distance, time and place. Hers is that voice that fuses matter and imagination. She shows us just how close we are to that alternate reality. In its fluidity, WHO FEARS DEATH captures the substance of our necessary but often ignored realities. Read it."

-Tchidi Chikere, Nigeria’s prolific award-winning film director and screenwriter



"Nnedi Okorafor continues her epic journey into literary greatness. She manages to create worlds within worlds, stories that feel timeless, in language and setting we have not seen before. Her newest teaches us that we can and should look beyond labels and genres. She is in the passing lane now, and she is starting to pull away. Catch her now."

-Luis Alberto Urrea, author of The Hummingbird's Daughter and 2005 Pulitzer Prize finalist for the Devil's Highway.



"Nnedi Okorafor has embarked on a rather stunning literary journey. In several wonderful novels and short stories, she has tapped into diverse traditions that date back into the dawn of humanity’s first storytelling ventures. She uses this material toward a forward-looking complexity that, I believe, predicts the coming face of global speculative fiction. Her latest novel for adults, WHO FEARS DEATH, is urgently topical, at times brutal, and always wholly original. It’s no surprise she’s been racking up awards. There are more to come, surely."

-David Anthony Durham, bestselling and award-winning author of Acacia

International award-winning author Nnedi Okorafor enters the world of magic realist literature with a powerful story of genocide in the far future and of the woman who reshapes her world.
    
In a post-apocalyptic Africa, the world has changed in many ways, yet in one region genocide between tribes still bloodies the land. After years of enslaving the Okeke people, the Nuru tribe has decided to follow the Great Book and exterminate the Okeke tribe for good. An Okeke woman who has survived the annihilation of her village and a terrible rape by an enemy general wanders into the desert hoping to die. Instead, she gives birth to an angry baby girl with hair and skin the color of sand. Gripped by the certainty that her daughter is different—special—she names her child Onyesonwu, which means “Who Fears Death?” in an ancient tongue.

From a young age, stubborn, willful Onyesonwu is trouble. It doesn’t take long for her to understand that she is physically and socially marked by the circumstances of her violent conception. She is Ewu—a child of rape who is expected to live a life of violence, a half-breed rejected by both tribes.

But Onye is not the average Ewu. As a child, Onye’s singing attracts owls. By the age of eleven, she can change into a vulture. But these amazing abilities are merely the first glimmers of a remarkable unique magic. As Onye grows, so do her abilities—soon she can manipulate matter and flesh, or travel beyond into the spiritual world. During an inadvertent visit to this other realm she learns something terrifying: someone powerful is trying to kill her.

Desperate to elude her would-be murderer, and to understand her own nature, she seeks help from the magic practitioners of her village. But, even among her mother’s people, she meets with frustrating prejudice because she is Ewu and female. Yet Onyesonwu persists.

Eventually her magical destiny and her rebellious nature will force her to leave home on a quest that will be perilous in ways that Onyesonwu can not possibly imagine. For this journey will cause her to grapple with nature, tradition, history, true love, the spiritual mysteries of her culture, and ultimately to learn why she was given the name she bears: Who Fears Death?