Human beings have a hard time relating to that which does not resemble them. Ayodele's identity makes humans uncomfortable. The danger lies in that Ayodele dismantles a well established system that denigrates ways of being that are different or stray from what is considered normal. The narrator of Lagoon explains that Ayodele's fluid identity makes her dangerous. This fluid identity blurs the boundaries of what has been normalised as “correct”.

In the novel, she is referred to as “a woman … man … whatever” and as a “woman, thing, whatever she was”. By queer I mean that her identity defies established gender identity categories. Through her shapeshifting capabilities, she defies what humans consider the “normal” ways of being.Īyodele is portrayed as queer. In Ayodele's interactions with humans, she questions how they live and think. But particularly innovative is how Lagoon imagines a bold alternative future in which there is a liberation of identities and desires from rigid norms.

A mythical spider called Udide Okwanka, for example, recounts the story – which is also told from multiple perspectives. Lagoon cheerfully disregards many literary norms. She transforms fluidly between human, animal and inanimate forms.Īs I have observed in my analysis, Lagoon, through its shapeshifting alien protagonist, challenges long held ideas of how gender and sexual identities are considered in Africa. Ayodele has shapeshifting capabilities that allow her to change her form. The novel focuses on Ayodele, the alien ambassador, and her interactions with three humans: a marine biologist named Adaora, a musician from Ghana named Anthony and a military man named Agu. The aliens make their landing in the ocean, in the lagoon close to the city of Lagos. Her 2014 novel Lagoon recounts the story of the arrival of aliens in Nigeria. Considered especially against the background of the phenomenal success of the sci-fi blockbuster movie Black Panther, Okorafor's rich body of work matters when it comes to the representation of black lives. Okorafor is on an upward global sci-fi trajectory, especially with the adaption of her acclaimed novella Binti into a major TV series – among several proposed projects involving her African protagonists. She explains in her blog that Africanfuturism is “concerned with visions of the future” and that “it's less concerned with 'what could have been' and more concerned with what can/will be.” Nigerian-American novelist Nnedi Okorafor calls her brand of sci-fi “Africanfuturism”.

Wainaina was in favour of looking beyond the despair that has plagued and continues to plague Africa.Īfrican science fiction is a literary genre which tries to imagine utopic futures of the continent. In his satirical essay How to Write About Africa, the late Kenyan writer and journalist Binyavanga Wainaina advocated for a rethinking of clichéd and stereotypical representations of the continent.

Lagoon nnedi okorafor analysis