Who fears death by Nnedi Okorafor (3 stars)

Coming off the Binti series underwhelmed I wasn't sure I should dive into another Okorafor book, but I was intrigued because HBO had bought the options on it as a series with George RR Martin as the executive producer. Minor spoilers ahead

Okorafor sets out to tackle some heavy subjects: rape, female circumcision, colourism, racism, sexism, and ethnic cleansing. She succeeds in showing us what it would be like to be pressured by society and tradition into circumcision, what it would be like to be the child of rape where your very skin colour screams to everyone that you were a child of rape. Just your skin colour makes you an outcast, constantly reviled and hated. Sadly, this is based on true events in Sudan:

The Nuru men, and their women, had done what they did for more than torture and shame. They wanted to create Ewu children. Such children are not children of the forbidden love between a Nuru and an Okeke, nor are they Noahs, Okekes born without color. The Ewu are children of violence.

The female circumcision where they mutilate young healthy girls is also barbaric:

“The scalpel that they use is treated by Aro. There’s juju on it that makes it so that a woman feels pain whenever she is too aroused . . . until she’s married.”

Onyesonwu obviously has magical talents, but sexism prevents her from receiving any proper tuition despite her life being under threat in the magical world "the wilderness" from her biological father, rapist, and powerful sorcerer.

This is all heavy, heavy stuff, but it is dealt with in well crafted storytelling...for a while. But soon I found the story stalling. I expected to get a sorcery training montage, but didn't. All of Onyesonwu's 'training' was mostly just starving her, throwing her into a deadly situation and seeing if she could figure out what to do instinctively. Somehow this makes her incredibly powerful, by her own account. That's unconventional, but OK.

I also expected to get more deep character development, but didn't. Even Mwita, the second most important character, is basically just a skin colour (also Ewu) who is in love with Onyesonwu. The girls who go through the circumcision with Onyesonwu become her friends, but are almost entirely defined by wanting the circumcisions undone so they can have sex. We know very little else about them except Luyu is probably the prettiest.

Sex is had and talked about constantly as the group of friends start their voyage, but there aren't actual sex scenes, just lots of talk about hearing people have sex in other tents. Its repetitive and boring.

After reading a number of Okorafor books, I think the lack of character development outside the main character is a pattern. There's no secondary point of view, and everyone else is a cutout. The villain nemesis in this story is crudely drawn as a pure evil rapist sorcerer:

“Some people are just born evil,”

Real villains are much more complex. What was his motivation for these terrible acts? We don't know.

The ending was essentially what I expected, although with a decent twist, i.e. Onyesonwu doesn't know what to do, acts instinctively using her enormous powers, and saves the day.

It may be possible to make a decent TV series out of this, although it will definitely be hard to watch due to all the violence. It is largely experienced second-hand in the book, but I assume you'll get that first hand on the screen.

The strength of the novel is the real-world hardships and Onyesonwu coming of age in a world where she is beset by multiple -isms. The fantasy/magic side of it is very weak.

3 stars.