Binti (2015) is the second science fiction book by Nnedi Okorafor to hit Reading Well (The Book of Phoenix was the first; Lagoon will be the third sometime over the next few months). Book may be an overstatement: Binti is a novella at most, a slim volume that details a young girl’s decision to leave her homeland to study higher mathematics at the most prestigious university in the known galaxies. And, the tragedy that befalls her on the way.
It is a work of great invention, and marvelously done. The protagonist–a young girl named Binti–is drawn with clear strokes, in terms of both her motivations and her fears, as well as the struggle to make the choice to leave her family, her village, her tribe, and her home planet, a choice that carries with it a high degree of social stigma. There are three main cultural groups in the story: Binti’s own (an extreme ethnic minority on the planet), the dominant majority on the planet (which carries an extremely paternalistic view of Binti’s people), and a vaguely jellyfish-like alien life form, who are embroiled in endless conflict with that dominant majority and largely ignorant of the existence of Binti’s people.
Ultimately, the story is hopeful: Binti is placed in a difficult and potentially deadly situation and has to find within herself the fortitude and the courage to triumph. A slim volume that sparkles with intelligence and vision, it delivers far more than the time required to read it.
#WhatIWishICouldDo
Publish a story of roughly this length. Because, you know, I have one. Also, I love Okorafor’s choices about what to explain, what to imply, and what to refer to in passing without further detail–that is the trick of wold-building. It’s not in endless histories and mind-numbing lineages; it’s in the small things, the details that add richness and thickness to the cultures being created.