Dystopia is perhaps the last thing that comes to mind when we ruminate on the concept of love. But British Nigerian writer Kelechi Okafor’s debut short story collection juxtaposes the two – to great success.
An afrofuturist Black Mirror of sorts, it merges aspects of ancient Igbo and Yoruba sprituality with a not-too-distant futuristic world in which pandemics have rendered us even more removed from physical touch and brought technology further into our lives. Against all odds, love in all its forms thrives anyway.
A sci-fi collection is a venture that some may not have expected from Okafor, but it suits her. An actor, writer and podcast host, she has turned her hand to everything from running her own pole and fitness studio, advocating for Black people (and especially women) from all walks of life, discussing issues about race and gender in the media, doing tarot readings and generally entertaining her fans with her quick wit and sharp tongue.
Her stories use sci-fi themes to consider what it means to be a black woman in society. Plotlines explore how it would feel to literally hold the world’s burdens in your own body, or to be addicted to experiencing an alternate version of your life through virtual reality, or to find yourself betrayed by a system you thought served to keep you safe.
But they are all also love stories at their heart. Along with emphasising reincarnation and the immortal soul – core tenets of traditional Yoruba and Igbo beliefs – the stories tell of technology that allows you to explore an alternate love life with a stranger, and a pair of lovers named Chinonso and Ndidi, who are drawn to each other across the ages and in multiple universes.
These hopeful stories, which portray “a world where black women love and are loved back” and “don’t have all the answers” are refreshing, as is the representation of aspects of West African spirituality in a part of the world that often rejects it.
Edge of Here may not be the first book to consider the far-reaching consequences of unbridled biotechnology, or how comfortably concepts like “race science” (the bogus idea that certain races are inherently more intelligent than others) fit into hellish, futuristic worlds, but that’s not the point. Like many books in the same genre, it portrays a future that interrogates what we’re dealing with now and asks us to pay attention.
The book is written honestly and plainly, and some of its themes and characters at times feel like a proxy for Okafor’s thoughts and feelings about the state of the world and what she’d like to change in it. That’s likely to be exactly the case, given her admission in the introduction that “these stories allow” her to share her “deepest hopes and dreams, represented through the protagonists”.
One story, for example, tells of the advent of an “ally chip”, which helps people with some degree of privilege to understand the everyday feelings of marginalised people (in this case, black people specifically). But they cast eerie parallels with today’s world in the tradition of other black sci-fi writers such as Octavia E Butler or Nnedi Okorafor.
Edge of Here is a collection that is bursting with fervour, vulnerability and romance. I’m excited to see where Kelechi Okafor, the author, goes next.
Edge of Here: Stories from Near to Now, is published by Trapeze at £16.99
