saw a review Far Beyond Reality, maybe that suggested this collection should be viewed in some ways as a scrapbook, I'm glad I read that, since it had me a little confused, The confident storyteller of Akata Witch and Who Fears Death stumbles here and there within this collection, As I read the story notes, though, I realized that Okorafor was letting us behind the curtain, The first story she ever wrote is included here, and several stories culled from a trunked novel, Others serve as backstory for published novels, Most of the previously published stories are a few years old, probably since she has been concentrating on novels, "Spider the Artist" and "The Palm Tree Bandit" are two of the standouts, but the sum total is a portrait of a nowpowerful storyteller's early efforts, A wonderful collection of fantastical short stories, While I love fantasy in general, fantasy short fiction is often a tougher sell for me the word limit means that stories aren't often given a chance to breathe, and they lack that sense of space that I love in the best fantasy literature.
Nnedi Okorafor is able to avoid that problem by making most of her stories about magic encroaching on real people and real places, concerned less with worldbuilding than with imbuing an existing world with the magical, the weird, or the horrifying.
Most of the stories take place in Nigeria, with a particular recurring focus on the Niger Delta these latter stories, which fill the conflict between foreign oil companies and the people of the region with fantasy or scifi elements, tended to be my favorite.
Many, though not all, are structured around a young woman discovering an unexpected element of magic either in herself, with the handful of stories about the flying windseekers, or in the the world around her.
This could have gotten old but it doesn't, because it's used in such an interesting variety of ways, I like how magic in Okorafor's world is so morally ambivalent depending on the context its empowering, dangerous, evil, freeing, destructive,
Looking forward to reading more from the author, Nnedi Okorafor is an Americanborn daughter of Igbo Nigerian parents and that mix of cultures is just perfect for the writing of magic realism, This collection of short stories draws on Okorafor's West African roots more than her American life, But the writer being American brings an outsider's point of view, The eponymous story is a good example of that, A successful American lawyer hails an illegal taxi kabu kabu to take to the airport for her flight to a family wedding in Nigeria, but the taxi takes her on a ride into the Nigerian supernatural.
Another story features two American sisters staying in the house their parents built and furnished in Nigeria but which the family has denuded of furniture,
The twentyone short stories in this collection tackle some serious subjects: intolerance, genocide, stereotyping, war including the civil war, persecution of the other, and the environmental and social destruction wrought by Western oil companies.
Foremost is the treatment of strong women who dare to break with the patriarchal society in which they live, There are several stories about windseekers women who are physically marked out by their dada hair and independent spirit, and who can fly, They are feared and persecuted as witches, Fortunately the book comes with notes from the author, which give an interesting insight into what inspired these stories, The notes also explain that, as I suspected when I read the stories, some of the stories were originally parts of or side stories from fulllength novels: the windseeker stories come from a novel Zahrah the Windseeker which won theoWole Soyinka Prize for Literature.
Some of the stories are very definitely magic realism, others are closer to fantasy and/or science fiction, Biafra won The Margin: Exploring Modern Magical Realism Short Story Contest, It also happens to be one of my favourite stories, I am old enough to remember the terrible images of the Nigerian Civil Warthat fed into my childhood home via the BBC News, I can't imagine how they would haunt every Nigerian family, This story shows brilliantly how magic realism can tackle horrific subjects, The central character is a windseeker living in America: "like so many of our people who were abroad, she'd felt the words deep in her bones, Come home!" There are some incredible images in this story, A dying girl asked what the spirits of the girl's family and friends look like, replies: "Like large pretty green lizards with long long rough tails, Helicopters are described as giant metal vultures dropping excrements of death, "
I found Okarafor's work fascinating, I have only limited knowledge of the African heritage that inspires her work, but I can see how she is forging an African/American approach to magic realism, Her recent magic realist novel Who Fears Death has just been added to my to read list,
I received this book from the publisher via Netgalley in return for a fair review,
This review first appeared on the magic realism books blog sitelink blogspot. com Kabu Kabu unregistered, illegal Nigerian taxis generally get you where you need to go, but Nnedi Okorafor's Kabu Kabu takes the reader to exciting, fantastic, magical, occasionally dangerous, and always imaginative locations.
This debut short story collection by awardwinning author Nnedi Okorafor includes notable previouslypublished short work, a new novella cowritten with New York Times bestselling author Alan Dean Foster, and a brief foreword by Whoopi Goldberg.
I received this book for free as part of the goodreads first reads giveaway, This collection of short stories is amazing, Every story in this book is as vivid and engaging and immersive as you could ask for in a group of short stories, I loved every single one and I can't wait to read more by this author, On a side note I would love to read 'The Legend of Arroyo' if it is ever published, A collection ofstories from fantasy, horror, scifi, and speculative fiction, The stories include some tales from Okorafors previouslypublished short work and a new novella cowritten with New York Times bestselling author Alan Dean Foster, There is a brief and interesting foreword by Whoopi Goldberg, and an authors note at the end, explaining the origin and thought process behind each of the stories,
All the tales are imaginative and bizarre and weird and mindblowing in different ways, Yup, the attributes are as eclectic and quirky as the stories themselves, Many of the stories wereorstar reads for me, A few could have reached the same level were it not for their endings which brought down their impact, But if you have rate the book on the sheer creativity of the human mind, it would get a full rating, The imagery will also blow your mind, Such lush descriptions!
Some of my favourites from this collection were Kabu Kabu, Spider the Artist, The Ghastly Bird and The Carpet, I also enjoyed The Magical Negro, The House of Deformities, The Winds of Harmattan, Long Juju Man, Icon, The Popular Mechanic, The Baboon War, Asunder and The PalmTree Bandit,
Minor complaint: Some stories use some local African words Im not sure what language they are from for which there's no translation or context provided, A glossary would certainly have helped because in many of these cases, the pun or joke isnt clear simple because of the lacuna in understanding the word,
If you want to get a quick glimpse of Okorafors writing style before trying out a fulllength work, this anthology would be perfect to begin with,
Join me on the Facebook group, sitelinkReaders Forever!, for more reviews, bookrelated discussions and fun,
Follow me on Instagram: sitelinkRoshs The Magical Negro a warrior is about to be killed by some demons when a stranger appearsstars
Kabu Kabu a woman is close to loosing her plane when an illegal cab driver helps her outstars
The House of Deformities two sisters are accompanying their parents to Nigeria to visit relatives and on the way they make a pit stopstars
The Black Stain as the merchant's sons, the eldest stays behind minding the shop while the youngest goes forth to collect merchandisestars
How Inyang Got Her Wings born different and unmarriageable, Inyang discovers another oddity one night: her wings my favorite
On the Road a Chicago cop is visiting her grandmother and grandaunt in Nigeria when she opens the door and sees a bleeding boy the boy disappears but things only get weirderstars
Spider the Artist hiding from her abusive husband, a woman plays guitar in her backyard and encounters a Zombiestars
The Ghastly Bird a childhood dream comes true when a man discovers an extinct dodo bird eating fruits from his treestars
The Winds of Harmattan Asuquo, a Windseeker, is pressured into marrying a man she is lukewarm aboutstars
Long Juju Man a young girl tries to outsmart the infamous Long Juju Manstars
The Carpet two sisters go souvenir shopping but bring something odd into their ancestral rural Nigerian homestars
Icon journalists working to find a scoop on Nigerian oil pirates get more than they bargained forstars
The Popular Mechanic a firstyear medical student returns home after her father disappearsstars
Windseekers two strangers, one murderstars
Bakasi Man a hunchback doctor enters politics and decides to scapegoat societal issues on a small group of peoplestars
The Baboon War on their way to school, three girls face off a baboon ambushstars
Asunder a couple drowning in love is interrupted by a sudden pregnancystars
Tumaki a metahuman brings a broken toy to a mechanic wearing a burkastars
Biafra a Windseeker hides her identity in order to infiltrate a refugee campstars
Moom! the largest swordfish is furious when her wares are tampered withstars
The Palm Tree Bandit the story of how one greatgrandmother's vandalism led to a beneficial outcome for the village womenfolkI'm very excited that you will all be able to finally read the novella that Alan Dean Foster and I wrote called Kabu Kabu.
It's a trip pun intended, And the story titled "The Black Stain" a story from Who Fears Death is some heavy heavy stuff, But I needed to write it, I have other favorites in here like The Magical Negro that neeeever gets old and the Arroyo stories the first windseeker I wrote about, Writing about her led to Zahrah, There are stories about hardcore hunchbacks, magic carpets, baboons with secrets, rogue robots and much more,
Note: You can trust THIS review this early in the game because I have actually read Kabu Kabu this book will not be published until October, We're still in the editing process, So anyone else reviewing this book right now is making sht up, There seems to be several very specific subgenres to immigrant fiction i, e. fiction written by and about immigrants, This one is definitely the nostalgic variant, Wherein an immigrant first or second generation author waxes nostalgic about the place their family was once so desperate to leave, No easy task, mind you, the country here is Nigeria and, as described in this book and other books Ive read set there, categorically not a place youd ever want to visit.
To quote one of the characters an African American man before any accusations of racism rear their uglies its a fcking jungle rife with jungle people or something like that.
But, potential accuracy aside, that really is an ugly way to describe the place, And the author takes a different approach altogether, she steeps Nigeria in magical realism and fantasy, her jungle is set in fairy tales it seems of ancient legends and traditions.
The thing of it is, though, is those traditions are sometimes along the lines of subjecting women to
circumcisions and deliberate fattening to prepare for a marriage, Or a variety of equally barbaric seeming familial relations, And granted, I can be easily accused here of approaching this book from a Eurocentric, first world privileged, feminist perspective, but fck that, quality of life is an objectively measurable thing, thats why there are global lists of such things, civic rights, education levels, wealth, infrastructure, political representation, gender equality, etc.
all quantifiable things, all charts Nigeria would do abysmally on, And no amount of fairy tales can change that or cover it up, theres no gilding a turd, So with that in mind, its difficult to enjoy this book and really get into the authors tales, no matter how well crafted but for the record above average they may be.
Though I enjoy magical realism and science fiction not fantasy, really, there was consistently too much ugly brutal reality to consider this an enjoyable read, Was the goal to represent Nigeria as a backwards tribal war zone steeped in poverty and superstition passed on for tradition If so, this book was a resounding success, This seems to be the authors chosen genre, African infused fantasy/sci fi blend, She wrote Binti series too, of which I read book one and have no intention on pursuing the series, I know theres a certain fascination third world holds for the first worlders, explaining such disgusting thing as poverty tourism among other things, but personally I dont care for it.
If Im reading a place Id never ever want to set foot in, Id much prefer actual realism or at least less smokescreens and shadow puppetry to make up for the unpleasantness behind the scenes.
Then again maybe the goal here is to represent and explain a place through its mythology, If so, Im not sure it quite does that, Maybe the terrifying backwardness of the overall mentality gets in the way, The horrifyingly medieval attitude toward women aloneIm not quite sure any amount of magic empowerment, levitating and so on, can quite make up for that, Seems that the best and possibly the only way to actually enjoy this book would be to completely shut off a qualifying discerning mind and just gooh nice, thats a lovely story.
If you cant completely divorce the context from the place and the politics, its going to be as challenging of a trip as any unpaved Nigerian road offers, whether its in the magic cab, kabu kabu, or otherwise.
I did enjoy some of the writing and some of the ideas, my favorite being the Zombie one, but overall the juxtaposition of reality to surrealism didnt quite sing for me.
Give me a story of immigrant experience in their new country any day over this sort of thing, First Binti, now this, ok, ok, this may not be the right author for me, And Im probably in a minority in thinking this, African speculative fiction is very hot right now, Whoopi Goldberg, for one, loves it, she provides a foreword to that effect, So different strokes.
Receive Kabu Kabu Engineered By Nnedi Okorafor Volume
Nnedi Okorafor