Her sense of personhood gets drawn into the deep past, into the concerns of honour and courage of different peoples, and into the physiology of alien beings.

Each time she works as a harmonizer, her identity grows more complex, troubled, and strange. Binti is alienated from her peers, her family, her homeland, and her sense of self. One risk is that Binti is put in mortal danger and significant pain a number of times. All of her Khoush peers and professors are killed, but because of an ancient technology and her own wits, Binti lives.Īs a harmonizer, Binti finds herself, in this story and the following ones, drawn into the role of peacemaker. While in flight, Binti and her entire cohort from Earth are killed by Medusa-like beings (the Meduse) who are enemies of the dominant ethnic group in Binti’s area, the Khoush (Ethiopian descendants perhaps, or Northeast Africa?). In the first book, Binti sneaks off to be the first of her tribe to attend the interstellar university, Oomza Uni, which fills a planet far from the deserts of Africa. Binti is a “master harmonizer,” someone who is able to use a genius for mathematics, a training in advanced technological development, and the customs of her people to “speak” into the world, bringing people and worlds together in harmony or challenge. Binti’s community is closely modelled on the Himba people of southwest Africa, including the special braiding of her hair and the red-clay otjize that coats her skin for beauty, protection, and an embodied sense of culture. Nnedi Okorafor has given us a living, vibrant, complex character in literary SF prose.īinti is the award-winning novella of a young African woman with a special gift enhanced and challenged by her rugged stubbornness, deep love, and dynamic intelligence. What a discovery Binti has been for me! In Binti (2015), Home (2017), and The Night Masquerade (2018), Dr.

Nnedi okorafor's binti