By If there’s anything we learned from the billion-dollar blockbuster Black Panther and its much-anticipated sequel Wakanda Forever, it’s that we love to see the futuristic reimagining of Africa and our favourite melanated stars serve Black Excellence on-screen.
But years before, Black writers, filmmakers, musicians, and other artists began creating work outside the everyday. Magic, imaginary lands, outer space, historical fantasy, shapeshifters, horror, and other realms can be found in this work, drawing from past folk traditions to create new stories.
Whether you call it Afrofuturism, African futurism, or Black SFF (science fiction and fantasy), the speculative possibility for our people is the focus of work by visionary multidisciplinary artists such as Samuel Delany, Janelle Monae, Erykah Badu, Parliament, Sun Ra, Doja Cat, Tananarive Due, Nnedi Okorafor, and the late Octavia Butler.
Think Nyota Uhura, played by the late Nichelle Nichols, on Star Trek in the 1960s. She had a far-reaching impact on the first Black astronauts (Ron McNair and Dr. Mae Jamison) and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr, who claimed to be her “biggest fan.”
Canada also has a pool of talented authors exploring these themes. Jamaican-born Trinidadian and Guyanese-raised author and professor Nalo Hopkinson is considered a pioneer. Having penned six novels, including her 1998 debut, Brown Girl in the Ring, and several short stories, she was awarded a Creative Writing Fellowship by the National Endowment for the Arts. Now on faculty at the University of British Columbia, Hopkinson “teaches courses in speculative fiction and is working to establish a centre for the Black Speculative Imagination.”
Trinidadian Canadian lawyer Njeri Damali Sojourner-Campbell has been running Soular Powered, an “online slow-reading group of a speculative, fabulist, magical realist and science fiction written primarily by Queer African Women & Transwomen and Women & Transfolx of Colour” since 2015. Two years later, she was inspired to start a Booktube channel called OnyxPages, which boasts over 10,000 subscribers.
I took this opportunity to interview two prolific Black-Canadian Ontario-based authors of young adult fantasy. Their work has been nominated for various awards and recognitions.
Sarah Raughley
{https://www.instagram.com/p/CklisSMrfbs/}
- Nigerian Canadian author and university professor
- 2019 Aurora Award nominee for Best YA Novel
What do you hope to convey to the reader in your Bones of Ruin series? What inspired you to write it?
The story of Sarah Baartman inspired me to write Bones of Ruin. She was an African woman in the 19th century who was taken to Europe under false pretenses and put on display. I wondered about the lack of power Black women had in those days and even now to assert our subjectivities and create our identities. Her agency was taken away from her. Bones of Ruin imagines what it might have been like for someone like her if she had real power, even if it was fantastical and supernatural.
When is your next book coming out? What is the title?
The Song of Wrath is Book 2 of The Bones of Ruin Trilogy. It comes out on April 18, 2023.
What are your thoughts about AfroFuturism/SFF books in a Canadian context? What makes our stories unique?
Afrofuturism is radical because it imagines that Black people will be here and thriving in the future. In a world where structures of power from the justice system to policing to education aim to brutalize and oppress us, even asserting that we'll be alive in the future is a radical act. Our stories are unique because we take from our varied cultural backgrounds and use them as our voices to speak the futures we wish to see into existence.
Is there one Black Canadian SFF book or writer you are excited about?
I just saw the cover for Deborah Falaye's YA Fantasy War Widow, the sequel to Blood Scion, which imagines an Afrofantastical Nigeria! It's so beautiful! I loved Blood Scion when I reviewed it for the Quill &Quire. War Widow releases June 6, 2023!
Liselle Sambury
{https://www.instagram.com/p/ChCf2fZLl_R/}
- Trinidadian Canadian author and YouTuber
- 2021 Governor General Award nominee
- 2022 Canadian Children’s Book Centre (CCBC) Amy Mathers Teen Book Award nominee
What do you hope to convey to the reader in your Blood Like Magic series? What inspired you to write it?
As someone who writes for teens, first and foremost, I want them to enjoy the series. I want them to be so passionate that they go to school the next day and can’t wait to tell their friends about these books they just read. And I wanted them to feel represented within that world so that this fun witch book they love so much includes them. Of course, I have themes and many different messages they can come across as they read. I would love for teens to give themselves more grace when making decisions about their lives after seeing Voya’s journey. But those are all bonuses. It’s more than enough for me that they have a good time reading and feel encouraged to keep reading.
Regarding the inspiration for the book, I imagined a girl bathing in a blood bath and didn’t know what to do with it. At the same time, I’d been pondering the possibility of a story about a family of Black witches. So many witch stories I’d read began with a character finding out they have powers for the first time. I was curious about exploring what it would be like to be in a magical family and grapple with a legacy of magic. Then I set that story in my hometown of Toronto and pushed it into the future because I thought that would be fun. It’s very much a story of several bits of inspiration coming together.
When is your next book coming out? What is the title?
My next novel is Delicious Monsters, a psychological thriller perfect for fans of Netflix’s The Haunting of Hill House and Sadie by Courtney Summers. It’ll be out on February 28th, 2023.
What are your thoughts about AfroFuturism/SFF books in a Canadian context? What makes our stories unique?
I’m excited to see more Afrofuturism/SFF books by Canadian authors. What makes them unique is simply having a different perspective—something you’ll experience throughout the diaspora because we all bring our individual experiences to our work.
What each author focuses on in the speculative can say much about their experience as a Black person within that context. For example, in imagining the future of healthcare in the Blood Like duology, I discussed the red tape that might slow down or deprioritize options for Black folks within a universal system like what we have in Canada. In contrast, someone in the United States will likely have a different focus based on the structure of their own healthcare system. It’s interesting to see the nuances between how we all imagine this intersection between race and culture and the advancements of science and technology.
Is there one Black Canadian SFF book or writer you are excited about?
I’m looking forward to reading more from Jael Richardson. I found Gutter Child to be such a captivating yet devasting look into a world that, while fictional, also feels unsettlingly familiar. Gutter Child is out now wherever books are sold, and Jael recently released a beautiful picture book called Because You Are.
Black-Canadian Speculative, Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror Book recommendations:
Middle Grade (Grade 4 to 8)
Beatrice and Croc Harry by Lawrence Hill
Dragons in a Bag series by Zetta Elliott
Let the Monster Out by Chad Lucas
Young Adults
Blood Like Magic series by Liselle Sambury
Blood Scion series by Deborah Falaye
Bones of Ruin series by Sarah Raughley
The Effigies series by Sarah Raughley
Gutter Child by Jael Richardson
Adult Fiction
Butter Honey Pig Bread by Francesca Ekwuyasi
Brown Girl in the Ring by Nalo Hopkinson
Falling in Love with Hominids by Nalo Hopkinson
Midnight Robber by Nalo Hopkinson
The New Moon’s Arms by Nalo Hopkinson
The Salt Roads by Nalo Hopkinson
Sister Mine by Nalo Hopkinson
Skin Folk by Nalo Hopkinson
