A Tale of Human Life and Human-Like Technology
A Feature Review of
Death of the Author: A Novel
Nnedi Okorafor
Hardcover: William Morrow, 2025
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Reviewed by Ann Byle
Nnedi Okorafor has won the awards—Hugo, Nebula, and more—and topped the bestseller lists, both of which she’s sure to do again with her new novel Death of the Author. This novel within a novel is a wild array of themes: tropes, questions, answers, family, AI technology, future, past, and present. It will keep you guessing and thinking at the same time.
Zelu, wheelchair-bound daughter in a large Nigerian-American family, is always on the outside looking in at her accomplished siblings. Her MFA and adjunct teaching job don’t help matters in a family of science-based high-achievers. But when she’s fired from her teaching job, Zelu buckles down and writes a novel titled Rusted Robots that hurdles to the top of bestseller lists, becomes a movie, and changes Zelu’s life and the lives of her family.
Okorafor artfully weaves pieces of Rusted Robots into the story of Zelu as she comes to terms with all the pieces of herself: disabled Black woman, Nigerian American, successful author, daughter, sister, partner, idol to her fans. Zelu lives life on her own terms, mirroring just a bit the phoenix, who rises from the ashes of her injury and her career to a place she never thought she’d be. It’s almost as if her protagonist robot Ankara has found a life in Zelu, her creator.
Okorafor offered a wide-ranging discussion of her book on WBUR’s 1A with host Jenn White, during which she called the novel “autobiographical” when it comes to the Nigerian-American experience, “based on me, but not me.”
“There is a thin line between fiction and nonfiction and this novel is an example of that,” she told White, adding that this novel is “a lot, but there is joy in that a lot-ness.”
Ankara is a Hume, a robot that collects, or mines, human stories. She is on a journey across the post-human landscape of Nigeria in an effort to save the world from an enemy fast approaching earth. Those stories she collects change Ankara, much like the story she tells changes Zelu. In fact, Zelu takes on some of the physicality of robots in her real life, further blurring the lines between life and art.
There is also a throughline related to freedom in Okorafor’s tale. Can and should Ankara break from the NoBody Ijele, with whom she has become a sort of friend? Can Zelu break free from the bindings of her family and their expectations? What about her partner, who loves her and understands her? Can she break free from her paraplegia? Can she even break free from the Earth?
Readers will find so much to like, ponder, wonder about, fear, and even love in Death of the Author. There’s the relationship between art and AI; the juxtaposition of being a Nigerian-American with tight ties to the Nigerian homeland and the immigrant experience; the importance of storytelling to our hearts and minds; the two intertwined tales in one book; and the question of what freedom really means.
Okorafor’s writing is smooth and effortless as she moves between the Zelu and Ankara, telling the tale of human life and human-like technology with ease. Her fans will find much more to love here, and she’s sure to draw new readers interested in the intersection of technology and art. Look for Okorafor to gather in more awards with Death of the Author, and look for it at your library or bookstore to read for yourself. It’s worth the time.
Ann Byle
Ann Byle lives in West Michigan with her science teacher husband, Ray. Their young adult children are in and out regularly. Ann writes for Christianity Today and Publishers Weekly, among other publications, and is author of Chicken Scratch: Lessons on Living Creatively from a Flock of Hens.
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