I wanted to love Death of the Author—I’d read and enjoyed several of Nnedi Okorafor‘s other novels. Her big ideas are always fascinating, and Remote Control is among my all-time favourites. But a little over halfway through, it lost me. The book’s heart is there, but it’s a slog, and it asks for more patience than I could give. I skimmed the rest, curious about the much-hyped twist, but even that didn’t quite redeem the trek. It’s got the big ideas, but not the spark to carry them.
Zelu, a Nigerian American writer who’s paraplegic, is our guide. She’s in a rough spot—fired from her Chicago adjunct gig, her literary novel rejected repeatedly, and stuck at her sister’s over-the-top wedding. She pours her frustration into Rusted Robots, an African-futurist sci-fi novel about robots in a post-human Nigeria. The book alternates between Zelu’s messy life and her novel’s chapters, which sounded cool but got old fast. Zelu’s novel is a blockbuster on the level of Harry Potter or The Hunger Games, but I struggled to get through the short chapters that Okorafor includes in the story.
The writing didn’t help. Like all of Okorafor’s books that I’ve read, this has a YA novel’s vibe. The prose is earnest, sometimes clunky, with dialogue that feels more teen than literary. Zelu’s voice is raw, but her constant snark and self-pity made her hard to root for. Her family’s no better—pushy, one-note, and critical for reasons that don’t ever really make sense. The robot chapters, while creative, are too short to sink into, and the real-world drama—wedding fights, Zelu’s PTSD from a childhood accident—feels repetitive. At 448 pages, it’s bloated.
After bailing out, I skimmed to see if the ending redeemed the rest. It’s a clever nod to the “death of the author” concept, but it felt like too little, too late.
Okorafor aims high—disability, cultural identity, the power of storytelling, the twist at the end—and I respect that. The Nigeria bits and Zelu’s wheelchair perspective add depth, and I really tried to talk myself into finishing the book, but it wasn’t for me. If you’re into sprawling, meta sci-fi with big swings, it might work for you.
