Along with Mwiti and four of their very normal friends, the group trek across the wastelands west to engage with Onye’s father head-on and stop the genocide of the Okeke people. So, she decides to take on her father, the big bad behind the genocide. Through many convolutions, Onye becomes a powerful sorceress and learns of a prophecy that she interprets as being about herself. Onye has been growing in power as a shapeshifter and spirit walker and with the help of her sorcerer boyfriend Mwiti she seeks out a more powerful local sorcerer named Aro. On her 11th birthday, Onye endures ritual genital mutilation and sees her father in a vision when she passes out from the pain. Ewu are feared for their violent tendencies and mixed-blood. She is neither dark-skinned like her Okeke mother, nor a golden-skinned Nuru like her rapist monster of a father.

Onye is an Ewu, a mixed-race child of rape denigrated and shunned for her skin color. The story is post-apocalyptic taking place what seems to be hundreds of years after a cataclysm destroyed much of the world and turned most of the green lands into deserts. Onyesonwu (whose name means ‘Who fears death’) and her mother are desert nomads that come to the secluded town of Jawir in the eastern part of a vast desert of what would be Sudan now. Okorafor threw every fantasy trope she could into this brutal novel to mixed effect. The romance and coming-of-age aspects of YA with the more mature themes of an adult novel. This novel feels more like a hybrid of the two formats. This was award-winning author Nnedi Okorafor’s first novel for adults after publishing a few YA novels. Take an ancient prophecy, a genocide-fueled war, a post-apocalyptic setting, a reluctant teacher, band of friends, and a powerful heroine with anger management issues and you have Who Fears Death.

Who fears death novel