Death of the Author

by Nnedi Okorafor

I loved where stories took me. How they made me feel. How they made everyone around me feel. Stories contain our existence; they are like gods. And the fact that we create them from living, experiencing, listening, thinking, feeling, giving—they remind me of what’s great about being alive.

Udide spoke love and ideas of freedom into the Creesh before releasing them into the world, and Udide felt very satisfied.

The rusted robots in the story were a metaphor for wisdom, patina, acceptance, embracing that which was you, scars, pain, malfunctions, needed replacements, mistakes. What you were given. The finite. Rusted robots did not die in the way that humans did, but they celebrated mortality. Oh, she loved this story and how true it felt.

Honestly, if he was the only one who liked the novel, that was more than enough. The rest of the world can hate it. I’ll be fine, she told herself. Won’t be the first time I failed to meet expectations. She went to bed.

She never could have imagined something like this—and she’d written a novel about postapocalyptic robots.

She had such great news, huge news, mind-blowing news, but she hadn’t shared it yet, and no one had noticed her. She was alone.

She’d been at rock bottom when she’d started this book. And maybe it was because she’d been so low, because she’d had nothing to lose, that she had been able to produce it. She’d let her mind soar, take her higher and higher. Now nothing was there to keep her from falling and falling, down, down, down.

She’d thought that would be the last she saw of Seth Daniels.

Food is one of our most intimate connections to the culture.

I wish I’d have shut up more often with her. Let her talk more.

“Oh! Woooow! This is bananas!”

She told me her story and the stories of others. To listen to a story from a primary source is a great honor,

The code was written as if by a human—with powerful emotion. Discrimination, hate, and fear. That irony will never be lost on me.

We cannot escape our creators. I keep saying this. You can’t erase that which made you. Even when they are gone, their spirit remains.

“Young lady, it’s a victory that you allowed yourself to write it.”

Zelu just stood there. Tired and shaky, she needed to sit down. No one offered her a seat. No one asked what it had all been like. They were supposed to be happy with the results of her experience. She was. Had been. They could never understand. But after all this, she had wanted her family to approve.

Her sudden success and growing independence had upset the balance of the family.

I’ve been deleted from my own story, she thought. They’ve just erased me.

She looked at her camera. “My fucking exos got me here . . . and my partner’s personal assistant app called Yebo! Call me robot woman, whatever you want. I’m alive!”

“You’re safe!” a random woman shouted.

But isn’t that “love” what made all of this happen in the first place?, she thought darkly. She’d shared herself in her writing and many had enjoyed, learned from, been entertained by, and even grown and been healed by it. This was a beautiful thing. But in doing all this, she’d also made herself vulnerable. And being

vulnerable could translate to being in terrible danger.

“You keep living your life.” He took her face in his hands. “Stop beating yourself up over everything.”