The novel takes place in a post-apocalyptic future version of Sudan, where the light-skinned Nuru oppress the dark-skinned Okeke. The protagonist, Onyesonwu, is an Ewu, i.e. the child of an Okeke woman raped by a Nuru man. On reaching maturity, she goes on a quest to defeat her sorcerous father Daib using her magical powers.
Characters
Onyesonwu — The protagonist, the daughter of an Okeke woman raped by a Nuru man.
Mwita — Onyesonwu's lover.
Najeeba — Onyesonwu's mother.
Fadil — Onyesonwu's stepfather and Najeeba's second husband.
Daib — Onyesonwu's rapist father, a powerful sorcerer.
The novel was inspired in part by Emily Wax's 2004 Washington Post article "We Want to Make a Light Baby," which discussed the use of weaponized rape by Arab militiamen against Black African women in the Darfur conflict. According to Wax: "The victims and others said the rapes seemed to be a systematic campaign to humiliate the women, their husbands and fathers, and to weaken tribal ethnic lines." Okorafor wrote that this article "created the passageway through which Onyesonwu slipped through my world." The novel contains several references to Amos Tutuola's novel The Palm-Wine Drinkard.
Reception
Besides winning the 2011 World Fantasy Award for Best Novel and the 2010 Carl Brandon Kindred Award, Who Fears Death was nominated for the 2011 Nebula Award for Best Novel and the 2011 Locus Award for Best Fantasy Novel. It also won the Best Foreign Novel award at the French Awards "Les Imaginales". The novel includes a graphic scene in which Onyesonwu is subjected to female genital mutilation, which she later learns may affect her magical powers. Steven Barnes of the American Book Review noted some had criticized the scene. In a blog post, Okorafor commented that she is proud of her Igbo identity, but that "culture is alive and it is fluid. It is not made of stone nor is it absolute. Some traditions/practices will be discarded and some will be added, but the culture still remains what it is. It is like a shape-shifting octopus that can lose a tentacle but still remain a shape-shifting octopus. Just because I believe that aspects of my culture are problematic does not mean I am “betraying” my people by pointing out those problems." She added: "What it all boils down to is the removal of a woman’s ability to properly enjoy the act of sex. Again, this is about the control and suppression of women."
