Death of the Author

by Nnedi Okorafor

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.

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.

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.

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.

To listen to a story from a primary source is a great honor, one that most of my kind will never experience.

“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.”

“Didn’t some poet say, ‘What you seek is seeking you’? You manifested this.”

“You’ve been shrugging off the house they built around you since you wrote that book, and this was the last straw. They don’t know what to do now. You rewrote your narrative.”

It was like I’d thrown off chains that were weighing me down and washed the dirt from my face that was clouding my vision.

Stories were prizes to be collected, shared, protected, and experienced.