(courtesy io9 / image (c) DAW Books – illustration by Greg Ruth, design by Jim Tierney)
SNAPSHOT
When there is a call, there is often a response.Najeeba knows.
She has had The Call. But how can a 13-year-old girl have the Call? Only men and boys experience the annual call to the Salt Roads. What’s just happened to Najeeba has never happened in the history of her village. But it’s not a terrible thing, just strange. So when she leaves with her father and brothers to mine salt at the Dead Lake, there’s neither fanfare nor protest. For Najeeba, it’s a dream come true: travel by camel, open skies, and a chance to see a spectacular place she’s only heard about. However, there must have been something to the rule, because Najeeba’s presence on the road changes everything and her family will never be the same.
Small, intimate, up close, and deceptively quiet, this is the beginning of the Kponyungo Sorceress. (courtesy io9)
(courtesy Britannica)
The good news is that there is a new trilogy underway from Nnedi Okorafor, a much-loved writer who has somehow managed to miss my TBR and reading schedule of some 120 words a year.
No idea how because after coming across a preview of the novel on io9, this is exactly the kind of richly imaginative, breathlessly clever and wonderfully diverse storytelling I crave.
The announcement of the new trilogy from February last year indicates it’s a novella trilogy which is a good thing because, much as I love losing myself in an epic 500-plus-page novel, and the series thereof, time is always an issue alas.
So, that’s exciting!
One thing that will have to happen first though is reading Who Fears Death for which She Who Knows, says Okorafor, “is [both] a prequel and sequel to Who Fears Death” which promises to be quite the reading experience.
I’ve wanted to write this story for over a decade. It’s been dwelling in my head like a living storm. If you thought Onyesonwu from Who Fears Death was intense, wait until you truly meet her mother. Phew! (courtesy Afrocritik)
She Who Knows releases 20 August 2024.