Broken Places & Outer Spaces

(Hardback)

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Nnedi Okorafor was never supposed to be paralyzed. A college track star and budding entomologist, Nnedis lifelong battle withscoliosis was just a bump in her plan - something a simple surgery would easily correct.

But when Nnedi wakes from the surgery to find she cant move her legs, her entire sense of who she is begins to waver.Confined to a hospital bed for months, unusual things begin to happen. Psychedelic bugs crawl her hospital walls; strangedreams visit her nightly. She begins to feel as if shes turning into a cyborg. Unsure if shell ever walk again, Nnedi begins to putthese experiences into writing, conjuring up strange, fantastical stories.
What Nnedi discovers during her confinement would prove to be the key to her life as a successful science fiction writer: Inscience fiction, when something breaks, something greater often emerges from the cracks. While she may be bedridden, insteadof stopping her journey Nnedis paralysis opens up new windows in her mind, kindles her creativity and ultimately leads her tobecome more alive than she ever could have imagined.

Nnedi takes the reader on a journey from her hospital bed deep into her memories, from her painful first experiences withracism as a child in Chicago to her powerful visits to her parents hometown in Nigeria, where she got her first inkling thatscience fiction has roots beyond the West. This was not the Africa that Nnedi knew from Western literature - an Africa that shealways read was a place left behind. The role of technology in Nigeria opened her eyes to future-looking Africa: cable TV andcell phones in the village, 419 scammers occupying the cybercafs, the small generator connected to her cousins desktopcomputer, everyone quickly adapting to portable tech devices due to unreliable power sources. Nnedi could see that Africa wasfar from broken, as shed been taught, and her experience there planted the early seeds of sci-fi - a genre that speculates abouttechnologies, societies, and social issues - from an entirely new lens.

In Broken Places & Outer Spaces, Nnedi uses her own experience as a jumping off point to follow the phenomenon of creativityborn from hardship. From Frida Kahlo to Mary Shelly, she examines great artists and writers who have pushed through theirlimitations, using hardship to fuel their work. Through these compelling stories and her own, Nnedi reveals a universal truth:What we perceive as limitations have the potential to become our greatest strengths - far greater than when we were unbroken.

Author Bio

Nnedi Okorafor is an award-winning novelist of African-based science fiction, fantasy, and magical realism. Born in the US to Nigerian immigrant parents, Okorafor is known for weaving African cultures into creative settings and memorable characters. Her book,Who Fears Deathhas been optioned by HBO, withGame of Thrones' George R.R. Martin as executive producer. Okorafor is a full-time professor at the University at Buffalo, New York (SUNY).