Africanfuturism n.

Nnedi Okorafor’s term for: a subgenre of science fiction that heavily features elements of African history or culture; cf. Afrofuturism

Used in contrast with Afrofuturism, which focuses chiefly on African-American (rather than African) culture. Okorafor discusses her use of the term in the essay Africanfuturism Defined.

Wikipedia


SF Criticism

Genre

  • [2013 M. Bould Africa SF: Introduction in Paradoxa (#25) 13 page image Mark Bould

    In her essay, the artist Pamela Phatsimo Sunstrum, born in Botswana and now resident in South Africa, distinguishes between the much-heralded Afrofuturism and an African futurism that is concerned with imagining Africas-to-come as a radical act. ]

  • [2016 R. Anderson & C. E. Jones Introduction in Afrofuturism 2.0: The Rise of Astro-Blackness x page image

    Moreover, within this Pan-African Afrofuturist movement there will be regional differences such as, and not limited to, Caribbean Futurism, African Futurism and Black futurism. ]

  • 2018 ‘Beautiful Women of African Descent’ Facebook post 22 Feb. page image

    Author Nnedi Okorafor is a must. #AfricanFuturism She’s definitely on my radar now

  • 2018 N. Okorafor Tweet 8 June page image Nnedi Okorafor

    There will be a Binti omnibus (published by @dawbooks, the publisher of WHO FEARS DEATH). And it will include a brand new Binti story called, “Sacred Fire”.…#InterstellarFiction #Africanfuturism

  • 2018 N. Okorafor Tweet 5 Nov. page image Nnedi Okorafor

    Please understand that Africanfuturism is not synonymous to Afrofuturism. The center/foundation is not American (sorry, this *is* the case with Afrofuturism, whether anyone wants to admit it or not), it’s in Africa.

  • 2018 J. Mears in Daily Californian (University of California, Berkeley) 7 Nov. page image

    ‘I’m fresh from Nigeria,’ she candidly announced. Okorafor has been using her voice and her platform to give Black women representation in science fiction. She admits that she did not grow up reading the genre because she found it to be too white; she never saw someone like herself represented. Africanfuturism is how she likes to categorize her novels. Combining elements of African culture with elements of science fiction is her way of diverting from the norm and including the narratives of Black individuals in a typically white genre. Diversity in the ads we see, the movies we watch and the books we read are all vital because people need to be represented equally.

  • 2020 L. Kniaź Afrofuturist Media Ephemera in Extrapolation (vol. 61, iss. 1/2) 54

    [This] article regards Africanfuturism as a particular manifestation of Afrofuturism. In contrast to largely American Afrofuturism, Africanfuturism appears as more future-oriented, focused on implementations of real technologies to improve the economic and political shape of tomorrow’s Africa rather than reassessing the past and contemplating contemporary American issues…. In contrast to American Afrofuturism, Africanfuturism, produced by both Anglophone and Francophone authors and artists across the African continent, explores issues related to post- and neocolonialism while celebrating the transglobal and transcultural identities of people actually inhabiting Africa.

  • 2020 J. N. Hanchey Desire and the Politics of Africanfuturism in Women’s Studies in Communication (vol. 43, no. 2) 119 page image Jenna Hanchey

    Africanfuturism lies at the intersection of Black and African imagining. This may seem obvious, but in many ways Okorafor’s work demands attention to how this obvious intersection has been overlooked.

  • 2021 R. Ito Beyond ‘Black Panther’: Afrofuturism is Booming in Comics in N.Y. Times 7 Feb.

    Okorafor, the author of its leadoff title, ‘After the Rain’ considers her work ‘Africanfuturism’, a term she coined to describe a subcategory of science fiction similar to Afrofuturism, but more deeply rooted in African culture and history than in the African-American experience.


Research requirements

antedating 2018

Last modified 2021-09-22 15:42:15
In the compilation of some entries, HDSF has drawn extensively on corresponding entries in OED.