Lagoon (novel)


Lagoon is an africanfuturist novel by Nnedi Okorafor. It has drawn much scholarly attention since its publication. In 2014 it was chosen as an honor list title for the James Tiptree Jr. Award.

Summary

According to Hugh Charles O'Connell:
Lagoon develops its... narrative across three acts: "Welcome", "Awakening", and "Symbiosis". Across these three acts, the novel's primary plot revolves around the alien ambassador, Ayodele, and her interactions with three human protagonists: Adaora, a marine biologist; Agu, a Nigerian soldier; and Anthony, a Ghanaian hip-hop artist. Blending its SF topoi with fantasy and folklore elements, we learn that the three human protagonists have special abilities. Alongside these fantastical powers, the novel also incorporates various Nigerian folkloric and mythical entities, which physically manifest themselves and interact with the material world after being awakened by the aliens in the second act. Such figures include Udide Okwanka, a trickster spider and master weaver of tales from Igbo folklore; Legba, the Yoruba trickster god of language and the crossroads who is recast as an expert 419 scammer, but who also shows up in spirit form as Papa Legba; and new figures such as the Bone Collector, a sentient stretch of the Lagos-Benin highway that attacks humans.