The Power of Life and Death: Nnedi Okorafor's Who Fears Death

Linda J. Hixon: The author’s best ever. It combines sword and sorcery with African life, culture, and desert sand. I feel I’ve walked months through the Sahara although the geography of the book and Rand McNally differ significantly. This is a book I’ll read again.

United States on Sep 14, 2023

Rebecca T: Thought provoking story and characters. Interesting and complicated family dynamics. Gender bias and horrors faced by women. The protagonist's perseverance, love, family, community, ambition, finding herself. I have read 500+ books so far, ranging various genres. This is one of the best stories I've ever read. A must read for everyone.

India on Aug 13, 2023

Struds: This was an ok read - a bit simplistic in its language but convoluted in its ideas, and poor worldbuilding. Random characters came and went with little or no purpose, and characters I wanted to learn more about were never mentioned again. I love a long story arc for several characters, and this book seemed to drop stories without conclusion, like it was trying too hard to fit everything in. Maybe a bad edit? Everything seemed really 2-dimensional. Perhaps I just didn't get it. I'm not sure what all the fuss is about making this into a TV series - I wouldn't watch it.

Australia on Mar 19, 2023

Ria Bridges: Reading this book was a real break from my usual reading fare, and indeed a break from the majority of genre fiction on the shelves today. Set in post-apocalyptic Africa, Onyesonwu, whose name means “Who Fears Death,” is ewu, a child of rape and regarded as cursed by those around her. A stubborn young woman, this doesn’t stop her from rebelling against what others deem to be her fate, and instead she rises up against adversity, against those who would keep her down because she’s ewu, or female, or young, and she takes steps along a journey that will ultimately change the face of her very culture.

It’s an interesting setting that Okorafor plays with in this book, and one that is sadly underrepresented in genre fiction. Post-apocalyptic Africa allows for a setting that most Western readers will be largely unfamiliar with, and, if they’re anything like me, their interest will be piqued enough to get them doing some research about issues present in Africa today. Onye is the kind of character who can make you interested in anything she’s involved with, from cultural differences to gender politics to the acquisition of knowledge, simply by being the kind of...

Canada on Jul 05, 2017

Brent Lambert: The most powerful thing about this book was that it left me depleted. I was emotionally and mentally depleted after reading this book. Two days I spent enthralled in the story and by the end of it I was completely drained. That is a good thing. Powerful stories demand something of you. You don’t just get to walk into that world and come out the same. A good story should leave its mark on you, make you pay a price for reading it. That’s what this book did to me. It took me in and didn’t let me leave until it was done with me.

There were so many issues that this novel tackled. It deal with colorism, ethnic identity, rape, sexism, religion. And there are some readers out there who’re not able to handle this many issues getting thrown at them at once. They want something simpler to devour. I think that’s the case because often the people saying this don’t understand intersectional identities or even want to grasp the concept of it. Every character in this book is a crossroads of problems and issues. To me, their depth comes from the fact that they’re not just defined by one problem. They have many problems, many societal obstacles to deal. That is part of the...

United States on Apr 21, 2015

B R Sanders: WHO FEARS DEATH, by Nnedi Okorafor, is not a book for the faint of heart. Told in retrospect to her captors by a woman facing execution—a woman who has changed the world around her in fundamental and unexpected ways and sacrificed herself to do it—the teller does not flinch away from the grisly and vicious details of her story. She revels in them. As much a book about hope and change as it is a book about the horrors of complacency, WHO FEARS DEATH is a book that embraces anger, and for that if nothing else, I loved it.

TRIGGER WARNING: The book has roots in the real-world history of weaponized rape in the Sudan. In the book, Onyesonwu is the product of militarized rape: her Okeke (Black) mother is raped brutally by a Nuru (White) sorcerer, and then her mother is rejected by her husband. Onyesonwu spends her early childhood in the deserts alone with her mother. Her mother notices the child has an affinity for juju—magic—and despite her child’s visible biracial features decides she has to seek out a township and raise her among other people. It’s not easy—people like Onyesonwu, the products of Nuru/Okeke rape are called Ewu and presumed to be inherently...

United States on Jan 20, 2015

Robert: "Who Fears Death" is a novel set in Africa. In fact, it is a fantasy / science fiction novel set in a postapocalyptic Africa, but to be honest, this only became clear to me very late in the novel.

Our heroine, Onyesonwu, is an "Ewu", a mixed race girl, born as a result of a rape. Permanently an outsider, she is passionate, stubborn, quick to anger, and, it turns out, adept at using magic / juju. She is determined to learn magic and change the world.

The world, meanwhile, is a desert, populated by two tribes / races: Nurus and Okekes. Nurus rule, Okekes are slaves. There's been an uprising by Okekes before Onye was born. Now there is a slow-moving genocide (Nurus killing Okekes), ongoing since before Onye's birth, and continuing, brutally.

There is a lot of stuff in this novel that makes the reader think, and which offers itself for debate and discussion. Much of its core is about the relationship between a group of young people. The novel clearly has a lot to say about women and sex and gender politics. The shifting relationships between our questing youths (four girls, two guys), and the importance of sex, are as much part of the novel as magic and...

United Kingdom on Sep 17, 2012

R. Palmer: Who Fears Death is set in (for most of the book) an unnamed (though it's clear that it's somewhere on the African continent) place post-ecological apocalypse. Despite the futuristic setting, unfortunately Okorafor could be writing about now - it could easily be any place in the world that suffers the violence that continues to be shamefully under-reported in this country.

The novel opens in a horrific style. The protagonist (Onyesunwo - whose name means "Who Fears Death?") is the result of a brutal rape. Her mother, an Okeke, whose people are enslaved and persecuted by the Nuru - another people who believe that it is their right to dominate the Okeke. Unfortunately, this is not so far-fetched; the use of rape as a weapon is well documented in the world (if not well-enough known of). Onyesunwo as the product of violence is shunned by the people she goes to live amongst; she looks different, but she is also a reminder to them that they are not at peace. This part of the novel is not easy reading, nor should it be.

That said, while Okorafor refuses to shy from the violence inherent in this type of conflict, where the battlefield moves to the womb, there are a number of...

United Kingdom on Sep 10, 2010