Death of the Author by Nnedi Okorafor | Ch. 1-17

Abu and Obssa begin their read-through of Death of the Author by Nnedi Okorafor. They examine the three layers of the story: the present-day story of Zelu, the far-future robot novel she is secretly writing, and a string of interviews with the people who know her. They also break down Okorafor's career and where the book gets its title.

IN THIS EPISODE

• Meet Zelu: a paraplegic adjunct professor and black sheep of a big Nigerian American family who gets fired and writes her way to a seven-figure book deal
• Inside Rusted Robots, the novel within the novel, where a war between Humes and Ghosts take over a human-less Earth
• Why Okorafor insists her work is Africanfuturism, not Afrofuturism, and the difference she draws
• The Roland Barthes essay this book is arguing against, and how autobiographical the family really is
• Where Abu and Obssa land after a third of the book, including who's Team Zelu and who's Team Chinyere