Binti (Binti, #1)

by Nnedi Okorafor

We Himba don’t travel. We stay put. Our ancestral land is life; move away from it and you diminish. We even cover our bodies with it.

When I left my home, I died.

“If you do not give it to us willingly, we have the right to take back what was brutally stolen from us without provocation,” the chief said.

Museum specimen of such prestige are highly prized at our university, however such things must only be acquired with permission from the people to whom they belong.

I stood there, in my strange body. If I hadn’t been deep in meditation I would have screamed and screamed. I was so far from home.