Huge thanks for William Morrow for this galley

I requested Death of the Author on a whim after hearing so many amazing things about Okorafor's previous books: the Binti trilogy, the Nsibidi Scripts Series, LaGuardia, and her most recent novella Remote Control. I was not disappointed at all. 

I did not go in with any expectations except for knowing that people love her character building and writing and they are right. 

Death of the Author is a science fiction novel with the perfect amount of literary fiction/disfunctional family mixed in. 

Zelu is the second oldest of a Nigerian family living in Chicago who had an accident at the age of twelve that left her a paraplegic. The story starts out when Zelu is around 30 years old and we follow her for over 10 years as she loses a job, deals with a family that wants to cushion her for safety, and as she publishes her first book. 

Okorafor splices in bits of the book that Zelu publishes in-between plot and interviews with Zelu's family. It was the perfect amount of a book-within-a-book for me. These splices make the book which is more of a contemporary or literary fiction have more of a speculative fiction feel as Zelu's novel centers around robots and AI set in Nigeria. 

To me, the center of this novel is what does humanity mean? Okorafor draws the line between humanity and automation as we follow both Zelu and her sci-fi novel. 

I would be remiss if I do not mention that Zelu is not the perfect character. There will be times where the reader does not like her, but more often than not you will be rooting for her as she tackles the boundaries around her that have been set by her family, tradition, and society. As she adds in automation to her life, her family just does not understand and she feels misunderstood. 

If I have one qualm on the book it's that the pacing is off at times when switching between following Zelu, going to her book, and going to an interview with a family member. 

This is a journey with themes of humanity, family, culture, grief, anxiety, depression, and the pressure to be as successful as your siblings. This is a journey I highly suggest you take on.