Zelu has always been a storyteller and she has always felt like an outsider in her Nigerian American family. A paraplegic since falling from a tree as a child, Zelu used to dream of flying among the stars, yet now she feels as if she's ever falling. When the novel she's been writing for 10 years gets its umpteenth rejection and she loses her adjunct professor job, she moves back in with her parents and lets herself fall under the thrall of a new inspiration. A novel set in the future, wherein humanity is extinct and metal robots war with disembodied AI beings, *Rusted Robots* becomes a stratospheric success. Yet even as Zelu gains wealth and popularity, finally hitting her stride, she begins to lose control of the narrative. "I've been deleted from my own story," she thought. "They've just erased me."
Author Nnedi Okorafor has masterfully crafted a book within a book, interspersing chapters of Zelu's story with chapters of the postapocalyptic *Rusted Robots.* Both books explore what it means to be human, and together they revel in the power of storytelling. Death of the Author manages to be both timely and timeless, with themes that include family, living in the margins, the writer's life, race, culture, change, fame, shame, forgiveness, self-acceptance, and that "creation flows both ways." The book's title is genius.

[Thanks to William Morrow and NetGalley for an opportunity to read an advanced reader copy and share my opinion of this book.]

I loved so many layers of this book. The rollercoaster ride of being an author. I loved the bits of the actual book too. Overall a very interesting book.

I got an e-arc of this book on NetGalley. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

I won’t say this book is for everyone, but it was a perfect fit for me! All you really need to know going in is that this is a book within a book. It follows the journey of a frustrated author and adjunct professor who decided to write something different for herself. The book within is the Rusted Robot sci-fi story she writes. ( I loved that the deluxe hardback I picked up this week has the rusted robot cover hidden under the dust cover 🤖).

I think the rest is best to go into blind. Both stories converge around themes of authorship, creation, art, AI, publishing, and colonialism all through the main POV of a dissabled author who uses tech to find independence and a Post human robot looking for his humanity.

This is a book that will make you think. It’s a book that will stay with you
It’s a book that will be well worth rereading
And it’s a book that made me cry and gasp out loud by the end.

Masterfully written. I can’t recommend it highly enough.

Holy crap this book was amazing! From page one to the very last page it kept me hooked. Definitely highly suggested 10 star read for me

Thank you to Harper Collin’s for the free ARC in exchange for an honest review. Unfortunately, I DNF at 50%. I just couldn’t get into the writing style - it felt very staccato. I also just didn’t enjoy living in Zelu’s head, probably because almost everyone around her sucked. Perhaps it’s cultural, but I didn’t understand why her family was so unsupportive of literally everything she did. I also didn’t understand how her using robotic legs was “shameful” and they were all so against it? The Rusted Robots excerpts I also didn’t enjoy. After giving it at least halfway through the book and I still wasn’t enjoying it, I called it quits.

So when I tell you I immediately took this to my book club like LISTEN UP OKAY and one of our members also immediately put it up for vote for her choice month after I went off about it?? I'm a changed person, I LOVED this book, it's my first Nnedi Okorafor and it won't be my last by far. Listen:

Death of the Author is about Zelu, a paraplegic Nigerian-American woman who, after being fired from her dead-end job as an underpaid, underappreciated adjunct professor ends up writing this book about robots in a post-human world and it is so Human the whole world falls in love and just runs off the rails with it. Along the way, she has to deal with people making all sorts of assumptions about her and her life and her personal wishes, especially when an opportunity comes to her that doesn't normally come to anyone outside the ultra rich.

There's shades of Yellowface (but without the plagiarism) in its critique on basically the "ownership" of public figures by the society that loves (and hates) them and the heavy expectations from those same people that come from being a success -- especially as a woman, especially as a disabled person, especially as a first gen immigrant woman.

Interspersed in Zelu's personal story are chapters of her book and interviews from the people in her life and it's all so rich and full of Yoruba and Igbo culture holding hands directly with the experience of being a child of immigrants who are really high-ranking people in their homeland and all the expectations too that come with THAT...

Thank you to Death of the Author for being the first book this year to set my brain on fire, I'm going to go buy a copy so I can shove it into peoples hands and yap nonstop.

Thank you to NetGalley and William Morrow for the eARC!

I liked the layers we got within this book. The story alternates between 3 POVs: Zelu, members of Zelu’s family and my favorite, the Rusted Robots story. I also liked the themes that were explored, themes such as disability, fame, family, dealing with different cultures and AI. Just note going in that this is more literary fiction than sci fi. Overall, good read.

A young woman desperate to find meaning in her life writes a blockbuster book that catapults her to instant stardom. As she navigates the demands of the publishing industry, her disability, and her expectations, she makes choices that have far-reaching consequences for future generations. Author Nnedi Okorafor uses the book-within-a-book technique in her latest novel, an experiment in metafiction that works only to a certain level in Death of the Author.

Nigerian-American adjunct professor Zelu has dreams of writing the next great literary novel, but she’s not making progress with her latest book. It doesn’t help that her large family doesn’t believe her job has any substance. Zelu teaches creative writing, and all her siblings are in more “prestigious” careers like medicine, law, and engineering.

The differences don’t end there. Since a terrible accident when she was 12, Zelu has been bound to a wheelchair. Relatives have made it clear that she’s not a complete woman because of her injury. Zelu does her best to ignore her extended family, but their comments still hurt.

Then learns her latest manuscript has been rejected by every publisher her agent pitched. After that comes word the university has decided to fire her. She’s jobless and directionless, and all this happens while attending her sister’s extravagant wedding in the Caribbean.

In her frustration, Zelu starts pounding out a new story completely different from anything else she’s written before. The novel, Rusted Robots, is science fiction, and Zelu doesn’t even read sci-fi. But the book stars robots who are decidedly Nigerian in culture, which she can relate to, and features them in a world where robots and AI are ruling the planet. The story becomes as much a part of Zelu as her wheelchair: necessary to who she is as a person but a decidedly separate entity.

Her agent sells the book and in a major bidding war, and it becomes a bestseller. Suddenly Zelu is being asked everywhere for her autograph. Enthusiastic fans want the second book right away, and Hollywood comes calling. The novel gets turned into a movie that is as much of a hit as the book itself and takes on a life of its own.

These opportunities bring new life options for Zelu. She meets a scientist from MIT who has been working on experimental technology that can supposedly make her walk again. She also meets a billionaire funding trips to space for civilians. These new avenues, along with other life events, take Zelu from her home in Chicago all the way to Lagos and beyond as she tries to discern her place in the world and what it all means.

Author Nnedi Okorafor gives readers the opportunity to live Zelu’s story as well as the story of Rusted Robots. Chapters alternate between Zelu and Ankara, the protagonist of Zelu’s book. Some readers may wonder why it’s necessary to read Zelu’s novel, which functions in its own setting and on its own timeline. The answer comes at the end of Death of the Author, but the journey to get there feels long and drawn-out at times.

As a protagonist, Zelu doesn’t grow much. She encounters discrimination because of her disability and gets frustrated with her family for their unwillingness to understand her work and her choices. Yet Zelu goes on expecting everyone else to change for her without experiencing any change herself. The book feels, at times, like a series of incidents that are connected simply because they’re happening to Zelu and not a cohesive narrative arc.

By comparison, Rusted Robots is a compelling tale of a robot that must carry dire information to the other robots it knows in order to make an important decision about how to save the world from imminent destruction. Some readers may wonder why Okorafor didn’t just make Rusted Robots her book instead of adding Zelu’s storyline as a frame. The “meta fiction” experience promised by the book’s blurb does eventually materialize, but not all readers may have the patience for the time it takes to get to the last few chapters and that payoff.

The novel is invaluable for sharing the richness of the Nigerian culture, however, especially where funerals are concerned. Those wanting to learn more about that particular culture may find this interesting. Others may want to skip it for the amount of time and patience it takes to get through the novel.

I had mixed feelings about this one. The concept was really interesting, but I kept wanting more of the sci-fi and less of Zelu’s chapters. The family dynamic was well done and added a lot of tension, but I found myself getting frustrated with both Zelu’s actions toward her family and how her family treated her in return.

The robot chapters were definitely favorite, but we just didn't get enough of them. What we did get were really good though and I would love to see more from that world. The ending felt a bit rushed and left me wanting more. Overall, it had its moments, but I came away feeling unsatisfied and a little confused on how I felt about this one...

I feel like I’ve read quite a few books lately where I was very interested in the novel throughout, but was disappointed by the ending. Fortunately, I did not have that issue with Death of the Author. The last chapter was perfection.

Death of the Author follows Zelu, a Nigerian-American paraplegic adjunct professor who goes through a series of unfortunate events. When she hits a low point, she goes on a tear to write a novel that ends up becoming a huge sci-fi bestseller. Death of the Author explores Zelu’s time growing up, how she became a paraplegic, her family dynamics, how success changes her life (and how it doesn’t), and her overall sense of self.

The book goes back and forth between her own perspective, chapters of her best-selling book, and snippets of interviews with her family members. It sounds a bit disjointed, but it works. There’s perspectives given on ableism, racism, grief and the role that the public plays in someone’s art. There were some weaker aspects of the book, but overall, I enjoyed it. Plus, the hardcover copy is beautiful!

https://bookandfilmglobe.com/fiction/nnedi-okorafor-gets-real/https://bookandfilmglobe.com/fiction/nnedi-okorafor-gets-real/https://bookandfilmglobe.com/fiction/nnedi-okorafor-gets-real/https://bookandfilmglobe.com/fiction/nnedi-okorafor-gets-real/

Initially, judging from the cover, I was expecting a some sort of magical tale older than time, but this is not really that book, or maybe it is, just not in a sense of a fairy tale or legend
The plot - without too many spoilers: Zelu, our main character is a disabled Nigerian-American writer who after a series of hard knocks, writes a novel that become wildly successful. This success, of course drastically changes her relationships and threatens to change her life forever. This is told basically as a story within a story and it is an amazing look at the publishing process, family life, and Chicago. Some have wondered if this work is a bit auto-biographical, but I'd argue that most novels of this sort are a bit auto-biographical and it probably isn't good to attach that label to a work by an author, unless the author herself attached the label.

So... does all of this change lead to a forever life change? A rendering with family and friends? Well... you'll need to read to find out. Along the way you'll be thinking about AI, robots, Nollywood, and a host of things that will likely tickle your brain in that spot that just wants new, new, new ideas!
This is another solid work from Nnedi Okorafor.

Thank you to Netgalley for the eARC, all opinions are my own.

This was a 4.5 star read for me, almost 4.75 stars, so rounding up to 5. This is so different from Okorafor's other works. Though it is science fiction, it reads like lit fic. I will always read what Nnedi Okorafor has to offer, but this one surprised me, in a good way.

Zelu's storyline was incredibly immersive, and I just wanted to know more about her siblings, her family... and I DEFINITELY wanted to taste some of that food they were eating. I had a multi-day consistent craving for jollof rice and plantains while reading. The story was nonlinear, but not in a bad way, jumping between perspectives as well as telling a story within a story. However, instead of feeling disjointed, it felt like you were putting a puzzle together piece by piece while looking at it from different sides.

Family came through so strongly in this book, as well as the importance of humanity. I'm going to go look for interviews with the author to see how she talks about it.

The ending though... I didn't see it coming, I didn't love it, but I also didn't hate it? Four days later, I'm still sort of torn. I may reread to see if I missed ways in which it was foreshadowed.

Delightful read.

Thank you NetGalley for this ARC!
Nnedi Okorafor always does a fantastic job in writing a interesting and unique concept and world. I thought the use of drama about art worked with what I’ve come to expect from the author. The characters in this worked well and were beautifully done with the story, I thought the use of metafiction worked overall and glad it continued to had that element that I was expecting. I’m glad I got to read this and left me wanting more from Nnedi Okorafor.

So much has been written about this book, and so much can still be said about the plots, but so much has been given away in so many reviews.

Here I want to focus on the masterful storytelling Okorafor has accomplished in The Death of the Author, and the themes she weaves throughout the book. Her characters all have distinctive voices, which stands out from so many other books; the African dialect in voices is accomplished through rhythm and tone of the language (almost all in English, with a few words spread throughout), a technique I wished more authors would use instead of patois/broken English spellings, which break the reader out of the narrative and dialogue. All of her characters in every country and situation have such distinct voices that it’s a pleasure to read, and her characters are far more well-rounded than the average because of this.

She also weaves two stories throughout the book, distinctively different (the Humes/robots and AIs of the far future, in Africa, and the 21st-century humans in the US and Africa) and yet thematically the same — a theme of what it is to be human, what it is to be “real,” what it is to be accepted by others and by the community and the world. A theme Zelu struggles with in regards to her family’s complicated negative attitude towards her disability (paraplegic) and her use of a wheelchair, and later her use of advanced technology in order to walk. And a theme involved deeply in the story of the Hume and an AI, struggling to save the world and yet caught up in another struggle to determine their own identities within their societies.

Finally, it is a story of anabasis and katabasis — both protagonists go through their own descent and ascent, culminating in evolution into new beings. The story that’s at the heart of all narratives of self-discovery. Okorafor does this masterfully.

This is perhaps the best book I’ve read in decades; I devoured it in two days, and I’ve been reading slowly lately. I found myself unable to sleep at one point, anxious to find out what happened next, and got up at 3am to read more. I can’t recommend this book more highly and more enthusiastically. It’s accessible to all readers, both of science fiction and “mainstream” fiction — and I’ve sold this book by hand to both types of customers with positive feedback from all. I suspect the field will not allow this to be her “breakout” book into mainstream fiction, but it should be. It also deserves awards and accolades. If you read nothing else this year, read this book.

"Death of the Author" is a tour de force of storytelling! A science fiction novel within a literary novel. Never has two for the proce if one delivered a more thought-provoking opportunity for the reader!

Nnedi Okorafor is an author who has written many books in her career but says that this novel has been in her mind and heart for almost thirty years. And what an epic homage to the intertwining importance there is to be found in the connections between the storyteller and the reader, and how that connection most definitely provides opportunities for reflection and consideration of life's bigger issues.

The fictional part of Okorafor's story is loud and quiet, bright and dim, clear and muddled, sweet and sour in turns. It is also messy and real and myth-filled and culture rich and perfect and flawed... well, you know, human.

The sci-fi within that fictional framework is an AI and robot-filled tale of order and chaos and of understanding. Yet within what one might expect to be a *perfect* world, always the quest for more answers. Ultimately, as these robotic characters search for contextual meaning in their world, they come to a rather startling and human conclusion! To say more would be to spoil this discovery of known truths for the next reader, so here my review will end.

I'd like to thank the author for her insight and craft, the publisher for recognizing and amplifying that, and to NetGalley for offering me an opportunity to read this speculative, original, and thought-provoking novel.

"Death of the Author" was published recently on January 14, 2025.

Death of the Author is an important book for any creative person. This is a book that teaches you to believe in yourself even when others don't and to work through your fears because you never know when you're going to succeed.

AMAZING is one way that I can describe this book. I had never read ant of this author's works.
; therfore when I began reading, I was openminded, and wanted to enjoy the experience. There was so much to love-- and author with a disability, artificial intelligence, blending with African culture, history, & utopian ideas, I look forward to reading books written by Nnedi Okorafor.

This book was SO close to a 5-star! I loved pretty much everything about it (except the ending). Full disclosure… I am a Nnedi Okorafor FAN; have been for years, so Death of the Author was one of my most anticipated releases. I was not disappointed. Okorafor’s would building is spectacular, as usual. Both major settings were tangible and vibrant. Her characters are as flawed, compelling and well-realized as ever. This was not a story about food, but I would be remiss if I didn’t mention how beautifully and vividly Okorafor describes the food in this book.

Ultimately, Death of the Author is an exercise in genre blending that is incredibly fresh and subtle. It wasn’t at all what I expected. Integrating Sci-fi into what is at its core contemporary fiction, added so much interest to the narrative. It is undoubtedly science fiction, but it doesn’t “feel” like it; which works so well for this particular work.

The way the story is written added even more interest. A story nestled into another story is not a unique concept, but it was executed beautifully. It comes full circle with an added layer at the end.

I didn’t LOVE the ending, however I do believe that it will spark an abundance of lively conversations. In that way, I can concede that Okorafor left us with an intriguing ending.

**NOTE** this review is intentionally vague, as I think this is the kind of story where knowing as little as possible can only enhance the reading experience.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.75

Thank you to NetGalley and William Morrow for this advance copy of Death of the Author. All opinions are my own.

Wow. It’s hard to describe this novel without spoiling the entire conceit, but this is metafiction at its finest. A book within a book, but so much more complex than that.

On the surface, this is a classic hero’s journey (look up Joseph Campbell’s The Hero’s Journey if you’re unfamiliar- it’s a great framework for a lot of literary analysis). Campbell’s theory is referenced directly in the text and the narrative follows the classic elements of a hero’s journey with our protagonist Zelu, a disabled Nigerian-American woman with an insatiable desire to escape the confines of what others believe she should accept as her lot in life. At a low point in her life, Zelu writes and publishes a bestselling science fiction novel that launches its author into a life she never could have expected for herself. Her newfound fame is controversial within her traditional Nigerian family but Zelu only continues to stretch the bounds of what is acceptable, reasonable, safe, or even physically possible for a human to achieve as the novel hurtles on toward one of the most satisfying endings I’ve ever read.

Zelu is seeking her “ultimate boon”, a concept from The Hero’s Journey which refers to the climax of the journey in which the hero achieves their destiny and receives their reward for completing their quest. Zelu’s quest is to finally be free from the physical and social limitations that have defined her life since her accident at the age of 12, and she achieves her ultimate boon in the novel’s final pages, but there is so much more to it than a classic hero’s journey like we’ve seen famously represented by such heroes as Luke Skywalker or Indiana Jones.

There is a sense of foreboding throughout the book due to its title (we must assume the author will die, right?) and the interviews from Zelu’s loved ones who lament the unnamed thing that happens to her after her meteoric rise to fame and the dangerous choices she makes with her newly acquired celebrity and money. The pervasive anxiety in Zelu’s narrative as well as in the other story seen in alternating chapters, presumed to be excerpts from Zelu’s novel, made this a relatively fast paced read. I had to force myself to slow down and savor it so I wouldn’t miss any important details, especially as everything was wrapped up in the book’s final pages.

If you are ambivalent towards or downright terrified of the rise of AI like I am, this book might seem like a bit much but I urge you to give it a try because above all it’s a book about humanity and the power of storytelling. 5 stars.