Nnedi Okorafor’s novella Binti exemplifies African futurist science fiction and horror literature. Tor.com released the novella in 2015. The first book in Okorafor’s Binti novel series is titled Binti. Numerous prestigious literary honors, such as the 2016 Hugo Prize for Best Novel and the 2016 Nebula Award in the same category, went to Binti. At Hulu, a television adaptation is supposedly in the works. This paper shall discuss the novel and its thematic concerns, the reason for the author choosing the book’s genre, and its correspondence to the African American culture.
Thematic concerns in the book
- Home, identity and Travel.
The protagonist of the novella, Binti, is a young South African Himba lady with a talent for mathematics. Her entire world is turned upside down when she is accepted to the distant Oomza University on a full scholarship. Even in surrounding cities, the Himba rarely leave their native lands in the novel’s setting, and no Himba has ever attended Oomza University. The fact that Binti leaves her house with the conviction that she is a proud Himba, a gifted mathematician, and a talented “master harmonizer” is noteworthy, a person who can control electrical currents to create various technologies (Oku, Pg.5). However, as Binti journeys and encounters individuals and creatures who are quite dissimilar from the Himba, such as the jellyfish-like aliens renowned as the Meduse who commandeer her spaceship, she starts to view her identity and her country in a new way. The novel’s thesis is that while being close to home may make an individual feel secure, traveling allows people to view their hometown and culture with new eyes and, as a result, develop a more complex sense of who they are.
As she sneaks out of her family’s house at night to board the spaceship headed towards Oomza Uni, Binti is at a turning point in her conception of who she is. She is aware of what her life will consist of if she stays: she will get married, take over her father’s business, and constantly have access to the otsize (an oil, clay, and smell concoction that Himba spread over their body and hair), which identifies her as a proud Himba person. She is aware that she must leave her planet and Travel to a galaxy where no Himba has ever been to further her study and realize her maximum potential as a mathematician. This will ruin her chances of finding love, if not ruin her relations with her family for good.
Even as she struggles to reconcile her changes with the native culture she adores, Binti faces challenges to her identity after leaving. After the Meduse assaulted the spaceship, Binti made friends with a young Meduse named Okwu and helped mediate a settlement between Meduse and Oomza Uni (the university had taken the chief Meduse’s stinger; the Meduse stormed the ship to regain it). Following this, as Binti starts her education, she is troubled by how the characteristics that define her as a Himba seem to alter or vanish entirely.
- Humanity, research ethics, and Science
The technologically advanced world of Binti is governed by math and Science. In the novel’s setting, Binti’s father expertly crafted astrolabes—handheld communication gadgets that also preserve a person’s whole life history. In the end, Binti takes a starship created through genetic engineering to journey to Oomza University, located a great distance away in another galaxy. Math and Science are nearly their type of spirituality for Binti and many of her prospective classmates that she encounters along the way. In this perspective, these areas are immensely good (Oku, Pg.5). However, after the alien Meduse takes over the ship and kills everybody except Binti and the captain, Binti gradually learns that Science and math may occasionally have a sinister and predatory underbelly in a university context. Despite the novella’s strong emphasis on Science and math as unifying forces, it is evident that for this to be true, Science must be supported by ethics and sensitivity, particularly when the subject of scientific inquiry is living things.
- The theme of fear and prejudice
Teenage Binti is an object of curiosity and derision when she joins the larger world, populated mostly by the Khoush race, who are lighter-skinned and have political power in Binti’s world. She is the very first member of the Himba group to be accepted into the famous Oomza University. Binti finds herself the lone Himba on the ship and the sole non-essential human when jellyfish-like aliens named the Meduse to take over Binti’s spaceship, murdering everybody but Binti and the pilot. Binti is thus the enemy from the perspective of the Meduse. Both Binti and Okwu learn that the only way to get past prejudice is to exchange feelings of dread and suspicion with real interest as they learn how to connect with the Meduse and get to meet a young Meduse called Okwu.
Binti is fully aware of how discrimination operates because she is a member of a minority group at home. She is aware that others, most notably the Khoush, view the Himba tribe as primitive, backward, and filthy due to their strong ties to their homelands (many never leave) and their custom of applying a fragrant clay substance known as otjize on their skin. Significantly, the Khoush maintain this way of thinking even though the Himba are renowned for their astrolabes, which serve as communication tools and store data about the owner’s history and future. Despite her extraordinary math ability and the fact that most of the hostility Binti encounters along the way has to do with her appearance, she realizes that the Khoush’s prejudice is absurd and results from their ignorance about the Himba.
- The theme of Friendship, belonging, and community.
In the weeks leading up to her covert departure from home to enroll at Oomza University, teenage Binti describes her friends and family’s less-than-pleasant reactions to the news of her acceptance. It soon becomes apparent that Binti does not feel quite home as she had thought. Binti can learn that belonging is more complicated than simply remaining at home and carrying out her family’s plans for her future. However, Binti understands that by finding companions who share her interests and encourage her endeavors, she can establish a sense of belonging for herself anyplace.
Binti has a strong bond with the place she can call home and the Himba civilization she was raised in. She finds meaning and solace in her culture’s hygiene and beauty practice of covering one’s hair and body with otjize paste, which is reddish brown, and assisting a user tidy without regular access to water for bathing. She is incredibly proud of her father, who creates treasured astrolabes. These communication devices keep a person’s history and future (Cadwell, Pg.1). Even yet, Binti starts to experience feelings of alienation when she finds out she has been accepted to Oomza Uni, a famous institution in a completely different universe where no Himba ever has been admitted.
Science fiction has traditionally been associated with white men. By defying the conventions and customs of the genre, Nnedi Okorafor tackles the dearth of female writers in black science fiction in her trilogy and develops her science fiction (Imen et al., pg.2). Okorafor criticizes the current situation of black women by offering various viewpoints on the ideas of “race” and “gender” through an envisioned future civilization. In general, feminist science fiction can be thought of as a more recent branch of science fiction. Science fiction’s long-standing dominance of the white genre has shifted to incorporate a more diverse range of works. Black women, in particular, “who are alien regarding patriarchal society,” have tried to alter how the alien is perceived in the male-dominated realm of science fiction.
Before the 1970s, men controlled the science fiction genre and attempted to portray women as helpless victims of machines or alien invaders. They “naturally eliminate women and by inference, considerations of gender” because of their “emphasis on science and technology.” The Civil Rights Movement, which took place in the United States in the 1960s, impacted community and literature. Since the 1970s, African American women writers have made a significant contribution to literature (Imen et al., pg.2). During this literary movement, neglected African American women writers began addressing the challenges of being both black and female. It is seen as “a separate epoch in Afro-American literary history.” This movement benefited from the Civil Rights Movement.
The novel talks much about history. Binti by Nedi Okorafor is a science fiction book with postcolonial studies themes woven throughout. It investigates what transpires when two disparate societies—one repressed, the other free—are brought together by the transforming journey of a young generation (the oppressor). Binti investigates restitution, integration, loss, inner and outside conflict, and the pursuit of harmony within oneself and between civilizations. It considers the functions of custom, culture, family, and heritage in light of the changing self. Additionally, it considers what transpires when oppressed and oppressor societies interact.
Conclusion
This study set out to discuss the Novel Binti and its major thematic concerns, as well as its genre and correspondence to African American literature. Binti, the novella’s main character, is a young Himba woman from South Africa who excels at math. Her entire existence is turned upside down when she receives a full scholarship acceptance to the far-off Oomza University. Due to the “whiteness” of the genre, black science fiction has been neglected for a long time. Okorafor’s novel is a good illustration of the subversion of the white literary culture of science fiction, despite the fact that black women writers have been perceived as newcomers to the field of science fiction.
Works Cited
Imen, Djeddai, and Benabed Fella. “The Strong Binti in Nnedi Okorafor’s African American Science Fiction.” Revue de Traduction et Langues Volume 19.02 (2020): 210-220.
https://www.asjp.cerist.dz/en/downArticlepdf/155/19/2/145990
Oku, Arit. “Africanfuturism and the Reframing of Gender in the Fiction of Nnedi Okorafor.” Feminist Africa 2.2 (2021): 75-89.
https://journals.ug.edu.gh/index.php/fa/article/download/1516/947
Cadwell, Shelby. “Book Review: Binti: The Complete Trilogy by Nnedi Okorafor. Penguin/Random House, 2019.” Foundation 49.135 (2020): 108-110.
https://search.proquest.com/openview/ac4d1552fda9a84e5166b5be98c3518c/1?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=636386
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