African Sci-Fi Looks to a Future Climate Imaginary Worlds

When the writer Nnedi Okorafor coined the term Africanfuturism, she wanted to distinguish sci-fi written about Africa from Afrofuturism, which is focuses on the experiences of Black people in the diaspora. Africanfuturism mixes the traditional with the futuristic in a way that resembles modern life in Africa, and many of these stories grapple with climate change. Although the writer Chinelo Onwualu says cli-fi isn’t a subgenre for African writers. It’s often baked into a lot of Africanfuturism because the continent is already at the forefront of climate emergencies. And the writers Suyi Davies Okungbowa and Wole Talabi explain that Africanfuturist cli-fi isn’t as dystopian as Western cli-fi. These visions of the future may feel daunting but there is often a sense of hope and the solutions are more community focused. The actress Nneka Okoye reads from their stories, and other works by African writers.
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Reading list from this episode:

Works of Nnedi Okorafor


Wole Talabi’s anthology Convergence Problems


Suyi Davies Okungbowa's novella Lost Ark Dreaming


Chinelo Onwualu’s short story Letters to My Mother



Dilman Dila’s story The Leafy Man from the book A Killing in the Sun



Mame Bougouma’s story Lekki Lekki from Africanfuturism: An Anthology


Omenana Magazine


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