2026 NAACP IMAGE AWARD WINNER
WINNER OF THE LIBBY AWARD FOR BEST SCIENCE FICTION

THE INSTANT NATIONAL BESTSELLER

Recommended by New York Times Book Review • People • NPR • Rolling Stone • Los Angeles Times • Reader's Digest • and more!

“This one has it all.” — George R.R. Martin • “As delicious as it is disorienting.” — Zakiya Dalila Harris • “Suspenseful, timely, and heartfelt.” — People • “Mind-bending.” — New York Times Book Review

In this exhilarating tale by New York Times bestselling and award-winning author Nnedi Okorafor, a disabled Nigerian American woman pens a wildly successful Sci-Fi novel, but as her fame rises, she loses control of the narrative—a surprisingly cutting, yet heartfelt drama about art and love, identity and connection, and, ultimately, what makes us human. This is a story unlike anything you’ve read before.

The future of storytelling is here.

Disabled, disinclined to marry, and more interested in writing than a lucrative career in medicine or law, Zelu has always felt like the outcast of her large Nigerian family. Then her life is upended when, in the middle of her sister’s lavish Caribbean wedding, she’s unceremoniously fired from her university job and, to add insult to injury, her novel is rejected by yet another publisher. With her career and dreams crushed in one fell swoop, she decides to write something just for herself. What comes out is nothing like the quiet, literary novels that have so far peppered her unremarkable career. It’s a far-future epic where androids and AI wage war in the grown-over ruins of human civilization. She calls it Rusted Robots.

When Zelu finds the courage to share her strange novel, she does not realize she is about to embark on a life-altering journey—one that will catapult her into literary stardom, but also perhaps obliterate everything her book was meant to be. From Chicago to Lagos to the far reaches of space, Zelu’s novel will change the future not only for humanity, but for the robots who come next.

A book-within-a-book that blends the line between writing and being written, Death of the Author is a masterpiece of metafiction that manages to combine the razor-sharp commentary of Yellowface with the heartfelt humanity of Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow. Surprisingly funny, deeply poignant, and endlessly discussable, this is at once the tale of a woman on the margins risking everything to be heard and a testament to the power of storytelling to shape the world as we know it.

“An ambitious, inventive tribute to the power of storytelling itself.” — Nikki Erlick, New York Times bestselling author of The Measure

“A deeply felt dazzle. A blaze. It is true deep to the bones.” — Luis Alberto Urrea, Pulitzer Prize finalist and bestselling author of The House of Broken Angels

"There’s more vivid imagination in a page of Nnedi Okorafor’s work than in whole volumes." — Ursula K. Le Guin

Booklist Reviews

*Starred Review* In many ways, Okorafor's latest (after She Who Knows, 2024) feels recognizable: the main character, Zelu, deals with family drama, grief and loss, and discovering her purpose in life. However, the author quickly flips expectations. Zelu is a Nigerian American paraplegic woman who writes a hugely popular sf novel without even being a fan of the genre. Her fame immediately changes her life and creates amazing opportunities. She works with a scientist who builds her robotic legs so that she can walk again, and she considers going into space. Unfortunately, Zelu can't always count on her family's support, even when she needs it the most. And her fandom is all about the sequel, without considering her feelings. Zelu's famous novel, Rusted Robots, is intercut throughout the story, showing the impact of events on her writing. Death of the Author explores many of Okorafor's familiar themes, like conservationism, Africanfuturism, and what a world without humans could look like. The focus on the near future and the issues that Zelu faces give the postapocalyptic Rusted Robots a greater urgency. Zelu's desire to live life on her own terms will engage readers who love to watch protagonists grow. Highly recommended for fans of Octavia Butler, Nicky Drayden, and Tade Thompson.HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Okorafor's work is always a big deal, and her latest book-within-a-book will attract genre and literary fiction fans alike. Copyright 2024 Booklist Reviews.

Library Journal Reviews

Bestselling Okorafor (Like Thunder) has won every major prize in speculative fiction (including the World Fantasy, Nebula, and Eisner Awards and multiple Hugos), and two of her series are in development at HBO with George R.R. Martin. Her newest is a work of metafiction about a disabled Nigerian American woman who writes a life-changing far-future epic about AI. With a 150K-copy first printing. Prepub Alert. Copyright 2024 Library Journal