Death of the Author

by Nnedi Okorafor

What matters is family. Without family, you’re nothing. You’re debris tumbling through space. Unseen, unconnected, uncollected, unknown, no matter how famous you are.

Being a woman is tough. Especially one who is a mother. We’re not all cut out for domesticity, even when we love our children.

But when she finally just asked him what he believed the story meant, he’d said, “Why don’t you tell me? What I think of my own work doesn’t matter. The reader decides what it’s about, right? Isn’t that what you said ‘death of the author’ meant?”

“This is twenty-five pages of self-indulgent drivel. You’ve just wasted your reader’s time. Throw this away, and when you’re ready to stop fucking around and actually tell a story, start over and have some confidence in the power of storytelling. You’ve only had the privilege of torturing your readers with this because this is a class and we all have to read what you’ve given us.”

We Humes had a profound love of storytelling. But no automation, AI or machine, could create stories. Not truly. We could pull from existing datasets, detect patterns, then copy and paste them in a new order, and sometimes that seemed like creation. But this couldn’t capture the narrative magic that humanity could wield.

Stories were the greatest currency to us, greater than power, greater than control. Stories were our food, nourishment, enrichment. To consume a story was to add to our code, deepen our minds. We felt it the moment we took it in. We were changed. It was like falling. It was how we evolved.

I consumed so many stories that my programming began to seek a new purpose: to become a Scholar. There were stories left undiscovered on this planet, in remote places among remote robots, and I wanted to consume them all. A Scholar searched for and gathered as much data as it could, always hunting for something new. And so I traveled, set on my goal.

That girl loved stories. If anyone had one to tell, she was there, ready to drink it. I was the same way when I was growing up. 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.

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.

You said you loved swimming in the ocean because it was a reminder that you were part of so much more. And that vastness didn’t make you feel insignificant. It made you feel specific and powerful and . . . you.”

“You don’t fight the ocean. You have to trust it to carry you. And once you do, you can be anything.”

It will be my fault. But I will continue. I’ve allowed myself to dream. Not of reality. I will never be able to walk. I know. But I want to see. I don’t expect, but maybe I am hoping. Tomorrow is where my hope lives. I can’t be normal, so I’ll be something else.

She stared at Wind, this woman she didn’t particularly like. “Who the fuck am I, Wind?” “Whomever you choose to be,” Wind said sagely. “Write what you want, woman. Walk how you want. Love who you love. Speak your truth. Be good and roll with life. You can’t have or control everything or everyone.”

“People like you and I like adventure, have to go on adventures, even when it annoys the people we love. We like to see things, test limits . . . but that doesn’t mean we won’t regret going.” Both he and Zelu had laughed really hard at this, because it felt so true.

“You are of him,” Msizi whispered softly into her hair. “You literally can’t be without him.” Another sob racked her body, and Msizi held her tighter. “We are mortal beings. We die. But we live first. And your father left a great legacy.”

What good was love if she could only see it through a window?