 First edition | |
| Author | Nnedi Okorafor |
|---|---|
| Audio read by | Yetide Badaki |
| Country | United States/ Nigeria |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Speculative fiction, Africanfuturism, Africanjujuism |
| Publisher | Prime Books |
Publication date | September 29, 2013 |
| Pages | 264 |
Kabu Kabu is a speculative fiction short story collection written by Nigerian American writer Nnedi Okorafor with stories in both Africanfuturism and Africanjujuism styles and themes. The collection was first published in 2013 by Prime Books. [1]
The collection includes the titular piece, co-authored by Alan Dean Foster, six other previously unpublished short stories, and 14 stories that had been previously published in other venues since 2001; with a foreword by Whoopi Goldberg. [2] The title "Kabu Kabu" is gotten from name of the non-registered illegal cab that operates in some part of Nigeria. [2]
Publishers Weekly gave Kabu Kabu a starred review and said the stories were "worth reading again and again", [1] later including it in its 2013 "Top 10: Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror" books. [3]
For Tor.com , Lee Mandelo praised Okorafor's storytelling, but called the collection more of a sampler of her writing that draws readers to her other related works rather than a stand-alone story. [4]
Wole Talabi reviewed the book in Brittle Paper lamenting that it did not include more diverse tribal mythology of Nigeria, but overall commending the collection for making it clear that writers in the speculative fiction genre include Nigerians, Africans, and women—not just white men. [5]
The audio performance read by Yetide Badaki was praised by Kat Hooper for the website Fantasy Literature, who also highlighted the African "settings, mythologies, folklore, food, flora, fauna, and other plot elements that are rarely seen in speculative fiction." [6]
In a Strange Horizons review, however, Matthew Cheney felt that readers would better appreciate it instead as a sketchbook showing Okorafor working through her material, and that the book as a whole is much more interesting than any of its parts. [7]
In the 2014 Locus Award voting, the collection placed fourth in the Best Collection category. [8] [9] The audiobook release was also a finalist for the 2014 Audie Award in the Short Stories/Collections category. [10] [11]
The World Fantasy Awards are a set of awards given each year for the best fantasy fiction published during the previous calendar year. Organized and overseen by the World Fantasy Convention, the awards are given each year at the eponymous annual convention as the central focus of the event. They were first given in 1975, at the first World Fantasy Convention, and have been awarded annually since. Over the years that the award has been given, the categories presented have changed; currently World Fantasy Awards are given in five written categories, one category for artists, and four special categories for individuals to honor their general work in the field of fantasy.
Nnedimma Nkemdili "Nnedi" Okorafor(listen) is a Nigerian-American writer of science fiction and fantasy for both children and adults. She is best known for her Binti Series and her novels Who Fears Death, Zahrah the Windseeker, Akata Witch, Akata Warrior, Lagoon and Remote Control. She has also written for comics and film.
Strange Horizons is an online speculative fiction magazine. It also features speculative poetry and nonfiction in every issue, including reviews, essays, interviews, and roundtables.
Dark Matter is an anthology series of science fiction, fantasy, and horror stories and essays produced by people of African descent. The editor of the series is Sheree Thomas. The first book in the series, Dark Matter: A Century of Speculative Fiction from the African Diaspora (2000), won the 2001 World Fantasy Award for Best Anthology. The second book in the Dark Matter series, Dark Matter: Reading the Bones (2004), won the World Fantasy Award for Best Anthology in 2005. A forthcoming third book in the series is tentatively named Dark Matter: Africa Rising. This was finally published at the end of 2022 under the title Africa Risen: A New Era of Speculative Fiction, from Tor Books.
Tor.com is an online science fiction and fantasy magazine published by Tor Books, a division of Macmillan Publishers. The magazine publishes articles, reviews, original short fiction, re-reads and commentary on speculative fiction.
Who Fears Death is a science fantasy novel by Nigerian-American writer Nnedi Okorafor, published in 2010 by DAW, an imprint of Penguin Books. It was awarded the 2011 World Fantasy Award for Best Novel, as well as the 2010 Carl Brandon Kindred Award "for an outstanding work of speculative fiction dealing with race and ethnicity." Okorafor wrote a prequel, the novel The Book of Phoenix, published by DAW in 2015.
Akata Witch is a 2011 fantasy novel written by Nigerian-American author Nnedi Okorafor. It was nominated for the Andre Norton Award and it is the first novel in the Nsibidi Scripts Series, where it is followed by two sequels Akata Warrior and Akata Woman published in 2017 and 2022 respectively.
Binti is an Africanfuturist science fiction horror novella written by Nnedi Okorafor. The novella was published in 2015 by Tor.com. Binti is the first novella in Okorafor's Binti novella series.
Binti: Home is a 2017 science fiction novella written by Nnedi Okorafor and published by Tor.com. Binti: Home is the sequel to Okorafor's Binti from 2015, and is followed by Binti: The Night Masquerade, published in 2018.
Sarah Pinsker is an American science fiction and fantasy author. She is a- nine-time finalist for the Nebula Award, and her debut novel A Song for a New Day won the 2019 Nebula for Best Novel while her story Our Lady of the Open Road won 2016 award for Best Novelette. Her novelette "Two Truths and a Lie" received both the Nebula Award and the Hugo Award. Her fiction has also won the Philip K. Dick Award, the Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award and been a finalist for the Hugo, World Fantasy, and Tiptree Awards.
Binti: The Night Masquerade is a science fiction novella written by Nnedi Okorafor. The novella was published in 2018 by Tor.com, and it is the final novella in the Binti trilogy that began with 2015's Binti and 2017's Binti: Home. When the full collection Binti: The Complete Trilogy was published, Okorafor added another short story titled "Binti: Sacred Fire".
Africanfuturism is a cultural aesthetic and philosophy of science that centers on the fusion of African culture, history, mythology, point of view, with technology based in Africa and not limiting to the diaspora. It was coined by Nigerian American writer Nnedi Okorafor in 2019 in a blog post as a single word. Nnedi Okorafor defines Africanfuturism as a sub-category of science fiction that is "directly rooted in African culture, history, mythology and point-of-view..and...does not privilege or center the West," is centered with optimistic "visions in the future," and is written by "people of African descent" while rooted in the African continent. As such its center is African, often does extend upon the continent of Africa, and includes the Black diaspora, including fantasy that is set in the future, making a narrative "more science fiction than fantasy" and typically has mystical elements. It is different from Afrofuturism, which focuses mainly on the African diaspora, particularly the United States. Works of Africanfuturism include science fiction, fantasy, alternate history, horror and magic realism.
Remote Control is a 2021 science fiction novella by Nigerian American Nnedi Okorafor. It is Okorafor's first novella after the Binti Trilogy and is set in the same universe as Okorafor's Who Fears Death and The Book of Phoenix.
Akata Warrior is a 2017 young adult fantasy novel by Nigerian American writer Nnedi Okorafor. It is a sequel to Akata Witch and the second book in The Nsibidi Scripts series. It won the inaugural Lodestar Award in 2018 as well as the 2018 Locus Award for Best Young Adult Novel.
The Binti trilogy or Binti Series is a trilogy of Africanfuturist science fiction novellas by Nigerian American author Nnedi Okorafor. Beginning with Binti and ending with Binti: The Night Masquerade, it follows the heroine Binti as she leaves Earth to attend a prestigious university in space.
Wole Talabi is a Nigerian author of speculative fiction and editor. The Scientific American described him as an author who "...blends transhumanism and the Turing test".
Akata Woman is a 2022 young adult fantasy novel by Nigerian American author Nnedi Okorafor. it is the sequel to Akata Witch and Akata Warrior and the third book in The Nsibidi Script series which debuted on the New York Times best seller list following the release of the novel.
Africanfuturism: An Anthology is an Africanfuturism anthology edited by Nigerian author Wole Talabi. It contains eight works of short fiction an introduction written by Wole Talabi. It was published by Brittle Paper in October 2020.
Noor is a 2022 Africanfuturist science fiction novel by Nigerian American author Nnedi Okorafor. The novel was published on November 9, 2021, by DAW Books and is the fourth adult novel written by Okorafor. It is a finalist for the Locus Award for best science fiction novel.
Africa Risen: A New Era of Speculative Fiction is a speculative fiction anthology edited by Sheree Renée Thomas, Zelda Knight, and Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki featuring 32 original works of fiction. It was published in 2022 by Tor Publishing.