The first few months I was there, that was when I wrote 'Binti,' and I was kind of exploring my family's fears and a lot of their fears were logical. And it was a very, very big decision, and eventually I had to just do it. They were having a bit of a hard time with it, and it was a decision that I had made. And she ends up picking up and going and leaving her family and going just so that she can go to a university that is on another planet.Īnd the way that that kind of came along was, for me at the time, I had decided to take a position at the University of Buffalo in New York. And Binti comes from a very insular family - a cultural family that's very close. OKORAFOR: It's interesting because a lot of my stories are often based on several things, but their foundation is in the stories of the women and girls around me and also within myself. Welcome.ĬHIDEYA: So how did you come up with this character, who has many fascinating talents we'll get into, and this world? Author Nnedi Okorafor joins us from member station WBEZ in Chicago. She's a teenager headed to the best university among worlds, some of which are at war with each other. Please not now, please not now, I thought.ĬHIDEYA: Well, that's one way to head off to college, at least for the title character, Binti. It was faulty, and most of the time I had to restart it over and over before it worked.

My transporter was cheap, so even a droplet of moisture or more likely a grain of sand would cause it to short. I had no idea what I was going to do if it didn't work. NNEDI OKORAFOR: (Reading) I powered up the transporter and said a silent prayer. Tonight, author Nnedi Okorafor is up for best novella for her story about a girl named Binti. They've been awarded since 1955 in categories like best novel and best graphic story. The Hugo Awards are handed out each year for excellence in science fiction and fantasy writing.

Binti okorafor