Title: Binti
Author: Nnedi Okorafor
Genre: science fiction, adventurous
Pages: 74
Publication Date: 2015
StoryGraph* Moods: adventure, emotional, hopeful
How I Stumbled Upon This Book: book club
Other Books by Okorafor: Death of the Author, She Who Knows, Noor, Who Fears Death, The Book of Phoenix, Lagoon, Kabu Kabu,
*StoryGraph also offers content warnings.
Description: Binti, of the Himba people, is the first of her kind to be offered a chance to attend Oomza University – which will require her traveling to another planet to study among strangers who don’t respect her or her customs. But Binti is up for the task, wanting to learn. Even if it means crossing paths with the Medusa, an alien race that is at war with the University.
Why I recommend this book: First, a SciFi book that is not European in origin/mythology/folklore/etc. – sign me up. I was excited to jump into a SciFi/Fantasy world set from Africa. Also, as a note, though I am writing this review of only Binti, I recommend the entire trilogy, including Home and The Night Masquerade. Okorafor does in seventy-four pages what most writers can’t do in hundreds. She has built an entirely new world, new magic system, wars even – not to mention an enriching and satisfying character arc for our main character.
Okorafor writes beautifully, laying out the system in a way that is easily understood, even in its complexity. The story itself, including our main character Binti, is utterly captivating – I read it in one sitting not because it was short, but because I couldn’t put it down. I then immediately requested the other two from the library (and gobbled those up, too). If you’ve never tried a non-European-based SciFi/Fantasy story, give this a try. It’s only seventy-four pages. What do you have to lose?
“They say that when faced with a fight you cannot win, you can never predict what you will do next. But I’d always known I’d fight until I was killed.”
~ Nnedi Okorafor, Binti
Ami Maxine 