A much-anticipated young-adult debut taps into a tradition of speculative fiction rooted in African culture.
IF A “BLACK LIVES MATTER – inspired fantasy novel” sounds like an ungainly hybrid—a pitch gone wrong—think again. The seven-figure book advance and movie deal bestowed a year ago on Tomi Adeyemi suggest the opposite: a convergence of themes likely to appeal to a very wide audience. Adeyemi, whose Children of Blood and Bone is the first volume of a projected trilogy, is a 24-year-old newcomer to the thriving market of young-adult literature, where demands for greater diversity of authorship and subject matter have lately been loud and clear. The Nigerian American writer isn’t a pioneer, though. Instead, her high-profile debut calls attention to an under heralded tradition. The creator of a mythical land called Orïsha, Adeyemi taps into a rich imaginative lineage as she weaves West African mythology into a bespoke world that resonates with our own.
For at least five decades, writers such as Samuel Delany and Octavia Butler, among other leading figures of the movement known as Afro futurism, have worked African traditions into their prizewinning science fiction and fantasy. More recently, legends of the orishas—divine spirits of the Yoruba brought to the New World by slave ships centuries ago—have found their way into YA fare. They have been put there by black writers well aware that speculative fiction has always been about more than magic and clever devices. Explorations of social power and possibility drive its plots and shape its characters, and young-adult fiction in particular has thrived on instruction through enthrallment.
Denne historien er fra April 2018-utgaven av The Atlantic.
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Denne historien er fra April 2018-utgaven av The Atlantic.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
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Catching the Carjackers - On the road with an elite police unit as it combats a crime wave
On August 7, 2022, Shantise Summers arrived home from a night out with friends around 2:40 a.m. As she walked from her car toward her apartment in Oxon Hill, a Maryland neighborhood just southeast of Washington, D.C., she heard footsteps behind her. She turned and saw two men in ski masks. One put a gun to her face; she could feel the metal pressing against her chin. He demanded her phone, wallet, keys, and Apple Watch. She quickly handed them over, and they drove off in her 2019 Honda Accord.
The Most Remote Place in the World - Point Nemo is Earth's official "middle of nowhere." A lot seems to be going on there.
It’s called the “longest-swim problem”: If you had to drop someone at the place in the ocean farthest from any speck of land—the remotest spot on Earth—where would that place be? The answer, proposed only a few decades ago, is a location in the South Pacific with the coordinates 48 52.5291ᤩS 123 23.5116ᤩW: the “oceanic point of inaccessibility,” to use the formal name. It doesn’t get many visitors. But one morning last year, I met several people who had just come from there.
You Are Going to Die - Oliver Burkeman has become an unlikely self-help guru by reminding everyone of their mortality.
"The average human lifespan," Oliver Burkeman begins his 2021 megabest seller, Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals, "is absurdly, terrifyingly, insultingly short." In that relatively brief period, he does not want you to maximize your output at work or optimize your leisure activities for supreme enjoyment. He does not want you to wake up at 5 a.m. or block out your schedule in a strictly labeled timeline.
Washington's Nightmare - Donald Trump is the tyrant the first president feared.
Last November, during a symposium at Mount Vernon on democracy, John Kelly, the retired Marine Corps general who served as Donald Trump's second chief of staff, spoke about George Washington's historic accomplishments— his leadership and victory in the Revolutionary War, his vision of what an American president should be. And then Kelly offered a simple, three-word summary of Washington's most important contribution to the nation he liberated.
The Elite College Students Who Can't Read Books - To read a book in college, it helps to have read a book in high school.
Nicholas Dames has taught Literature Humanities, Columbia University's required greatbooks course, since 1988. He loves the job, but it has changed. Over the past decade, students have become overwhelmed by the reading, College kids have never read everything they're assigned, of course, but this feels different. Dames's students now seem bewildered by the thought of finishing multiple books a semester. His colleagues have noticed the same problem.
What Zoya Sees
Long a fearless critic of Israeli society, since October 7 Zoya Cherkassky-Nnadi has made wrenching portraits of her nation's sufferingand become a target of protest.
Malcolm Gladwell, Meet Mark Zuckerberg
The writer’ insistence on ignoring the web is an even bigger blind spot today than it was when The Tipping Point came out.
Alan Hollinghurst's Lost England
In his new novel, the present isnt much better than the past—and its a lot less sexy.
Scent of a Man
In a new memoir, Al Pacino promises to reveal the person behind the actor. But is he holding something back?
THE RIGHT-WING PLAN TO MAKE EVERYONE AN INFORMANT
In Texas and elsewhere, new laws and policies have encouraged neighbors to report neighbors to the government.