Noor by Nnedi Okorafor
I have long been a fan of Nnedi Okorafor and have read several works at this point. While not as epic and sweeping as some of the other books in her canon, this is probably my favorite. Noor is a book of balance, simple in construction, but elaborate in theme. Meditative at times, and profound, but also filled with propulsive action. A novel of ideas and excellent characterizations. Noor is short, just 220 or so pages the average length of Sci-fi novels in the 50s or 60s but epic in the scope of ideas. At the heart of a novel built on the question of what is human, you have characters that I grew to care for very quickly. The very human characters drive this story that would have focused on the ideas in the wrong storyteller’s imagination.
The characters AO and DNA are an unlikely pair but they work. AO is a trans-human woman born with significant disabilities. Her nickname stands for Artificial Organism, she wears the name like a badge of honor. In utero, she lost a leg and was deformed. These health issues got even worse as she grew older. It was one thing to replace those parts but AO kept going, becoming cybernetic for a AO is a redefining of her disabilities. Early in the novel she is attacked and has to fight over her very humanity, which makes her a fugitive.
That is when she meets a tribal Herdsman who tells her that his name is DNA, a joke in response but that is how we know him for the rest of the book. Not subtle, but a touch I like. DNA is the opposite of AO in many ways including his attempt to live a nomadic, tribal life on the African plains. He becomes a fugitive when government officials kill his cows and declare him a terrorist after doctoring a video of him defending himself.
“Your generation has lost the art of proverb, the gift of wordplay, the science of fiction, the jujuism of the African,” he said picking up the joint he’d placed on the sand beside him.”
One of the many strengths of Afrricanfuturism* is more than lip service to diversity, it is how you realize that genre uses so many of the same world-building ingredients. One of the nice things, when you read this novel or the Binti books, is how African they are. Noor is a very African novel set in a future Nigeria. It was an accident, but this was the second novel in a row that I read by a Nigerian American author. One thing that is amazing is how singular the voice of a Nnedi Okorafor novel is. Those are the best novels often. Only this imagination could produce this novel. What a gift.
DNA as a character is struggling to keep his place with his tribal lifestyle. The relationship is uneasy at first. AO is very OK not being human, or being something more.
“Maybe I was becoming a spirit; that would explain a lot.”
In this future cultures struggling to stay traditional AO has to live with constant shame. Not that she agrees with it, she has doubts like anyone but her name itself is resistance. To the culture that rejects her, the corporation that used her, and the attempts of bullies to dehumanize her.
“…The corporation decided that a public execution of someone as damaged as me was bad press. He was sure that the Nigerian government may have done something to me, and they’d ordered the corporation to back off so they could retrieve their specimen.
Anything but me being a living machine connection, simultaneously human and machine; the result of an abnormal amount of flesh to machine wiring, some random glitch caused by a combination of violence inflicted on my body, and subsequent rage.”
“They hate what it does, yet Ultimate Corp continues doing it. It’s something more than human, by Allah. It’s the beast, a djinn. Fire and air, insubstantial, but very real. Human beings created it, but they will never control it.”
We have seen thousands of Science Fiction stories at this point that question the nature of humanity, just as many that explore the cross between the biological and technological. It takes a real magic trick to write a novel at this point that feels as fresh as anything the genre produced in the early years when everything was new. Sure it is the hybrid of setting, point of view, and talent of the storyteller that makes this novel special.
Noor is a deeply rich work of science fiction, that has more invention in the short length than some novels twice its length. The subtext is close to the surface and hard to miss. Africa is a part of the world that for so long now had to fight colonial invasion and definition. AO and DNA Are on the run for their lives and that is the action on the surface, the real battle is how they define themselves.
“I stood naked before him. Let him see every demarcation, scar, nonhuman part of me.”
Being seen is a point we hear expressed by fans again and again. I never saw myself on screen, or on the pages before. There is so much in Noor to see that you haven’t had a story about. That is a beautiful thing.
*The author quite rightfully objected to my use of the term Afrofuturism in relation to her work. I should've known better as I read the blog post where she discussed the issue. "I am an Africanfuturist and an Africanjujuist. Africanfuturism is a sub-category of science fiction. Africanjujuism is a subcategory of fantasy that respectfully acknowledges the seamless blend of true existing African spiritualities and cosmologies with the imaginative."
I totally respect this, I edited the review to reflect this. The whole essay can be read here:
Read the essay!
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