DEATH OF THE AUTHOR is a sci-fi book within a general fiction book (I hesitate to call it literary fiction). The main story is about Zelu, a Nigerian American paraplegic woman, recently fired from her job and at rock bottom, who writes a sci-fi novel that becomes an international phenomenon. The story takes off from there as Zelu navigates her fame and all it gives her access to and the ways it impacts her relationships. It seems to take place in the near future and involves technology that doesn’t quite exist yet, but feels close.

I’ll start with the good. Zelu is a Black and disabled main character, and I loved the representation and learning more about her challenges and how she navigates the world and the celebration of Nigerian food and culture. The food sounded so amazing that I ended up finding and a recipe for jollof rice and making it this week!

That’s as much praise as I can give it. The writing style felt stilted and clunky to me. The premise sounds amazing because of all the topics it covers - fame, the publishing industry, cancel culture, race, disability, technology, etc. - but I didn’t feel satisfied on its exploration of any of those. I felt like I was just reading Zelu and her family argue with each other over and over and over again without any character growth. Zelu is incredibly immature, and that’s a huge pet peeve of mine in books. She’s angry at the world, and as justified as that may be, it’s exhausting to read about for 450 pages. On top of that, we were told over and over how amazing her novel was, and yet I hated the book within the book. It felt incongruous and annoying to be beat over the head with how brilliant and phenomenal the book was, meanwhile all I saw of the author was how annoying and immature she was, and then the excerpts weren’t even good. This book was way too long and felt that way. The writing style reads quickly, but it was so repetitive I couldn’t wait for it to be over.

This book is getting a lot of pre-publication buzz and seems to have a huge marketing budget, and I’ve read some glowing reviews, so clearly this is working for some readers. And I have to be honest, the deluxe limited edition is gorgeous. If you’ve had success with Okorafor’s work in the past, this is probably worth a shot. Otherwise, I would give it some time to see if it has staying power once the initial marketing push is over before grabbing this one.

Thank you NetGalley and William Morrow for the free copy in exchange for my honest review.

3.5 stars-Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an ARC of this book, releasing Tuesday, January 14th!

Huge fan of Okorafor's shorter fiction (the Binti trilogy is a masterpiece and I really liked the first volume in the new She Who Knows trilogy) so I was excited to get this as an ARC! I liked it but didn't love it-I think conceptually and what she did with the ending was great. The robot novel interludes never quite grabbed me, maybe because they were short chapters and I wasn't able to get immersed or invested the way I did with Zelu's story, which makes up a bigger portion of the book. The third act felt a little out of place somehow, which might have just been about pacing-it covers a lot of ground and introduces a new story element and we rushed through quite a bit of it, or at least it felt that way to me. I didn't like this as much as Okorafor's shorter works, but I still enjoyed reading it overall.

This might actually be the best book I've ever read.

I have just now calmed down enough to put some of my thoughts to paper about this book. It will be gushingly positive.

Death of the Author>, at it's most literal level, is a book about a young disabled woman named Zelu who writes an overnight sensation of a novel and then has to navigate her life with that fame clinging to her. Zelu is Nigerian-American with parents of two different lineages - Igbo and Yoruba - and a large family of siblings, aunts, uncles, and cousins that appear throughout her journey. The book explores Nigerian-American culture and the disabled community as well as themes of belonging, love, and grief.

Writing a summary of this book is deliriously hard because there is so much beauty and nuance between the pages that simply cannot translate into the words of a review. I usually break my reviews down by basic book elements like plot, characters, pacing, etc., and I will cover a little bit of that here. But the exceptionalism of this story cannot really be captured by examining those things individually.

From the beginning, Zelu is a character. The book opens with her getting ready for her sister's wedding in Tobago. While there, Zelu quickly brings the reader into her confidence and begins sharing assorted family ties, dramas, ad cultural practives that she navigates while preparing for the ceremony. There is a huge group of characters that come up very quickly, but it never feels overwhelming. Each character immediately has their own voice and purpose in the story, and the reader feels that immediately.

After the release of Zelu's book, the chapters begin to flip between Zelu's perspective and the perspective of Ankara, the main character in the book Rusted Robots. Ankara's journey is separate from Zelu's with an entirely different cast of characters, but at no point do the transitions feel choppy or abrupt. Each chapter feels like it has a purpose and that it builds on the last, regardless of whose perspective you were previously in.

Truly the most magical part of this book was the author's writing style. This is my first book by Nnedi Okorafor, but I immediately feel that I need to start reading her entire backlog. Despite the copious sci-fi elements here, this story is deeply human, exploring themes of belonging and family while including automatic vehicles and robotic enhancements. Zelu herself has a unique and delightful voice (even when Zelu herself isn't being particiularly delightful) that is unlike any book I have read before, and her family is one of the most vibrant and alive that I have read in a long time.

Ultimately, Death of the Author is a book that is sure to stick with me. The beautiful writing and imagery has burned itself into my head and heart and I hope very much to see more adult works from this author going forward.

I have attempted a couple Nnedi Okorafor and I have decided, although it hurts my heart, that her writing style is not for me. I can appreciate the story and the concepts attempted in this story so giving 3.5 stars, but not an author I will continue to read in the future, or will have to revisit at a different stage in my life.

3.5 stars!

Deep, guttural, ancestral sigh...Zelu is a fun character. She has lived over 30 years in a life ruled by her Nigerian culture, her storytelling nature, her toxic family structure, and a physical disability. In a time where she thought nothing good would or could come from her, she created the story that would change her life for better and for worse. She became a household name literally overnight. Nnedi Okorafor brought us two stories in one as she allowed us to experience the love, loss, yearning, conflict, and success of both Zelu and her story's character, Ankara. These stubborn, persistent, vulnerable, matter of fact characters worked together to challenge our ideas of creativity and companionship. They both took on the large task of following their perceived purpose in the face of fear, adversity, and those who believed they shouldn't.

I struggled with this story, but I'm glad I struggled with it instead of giving up on it. I'm not a science fiction girlie, so I was glad to discover that this story contained much more literary fiction than science fiction. I really became invested in Zelu's commitment to creating the story she believed in and living the life she deserved even though her family opposed her at every turn.

I had a hard time connecting to Ankara's story, and it really didn't come together for me until the very end. I now understand that I couldn't have a complete understanding of Zelu's journey without a glimpse into Ankara's, but as I was reading, those parts seemed like more of a nuisance than anything. I think the author could've done better about creating more seamless transitions between the two stories.

I really enjoyed the cultural aspect of this story. It was baked into the fabric of the pages in a way that it surely could not be separated from the characters or the journey they were on. I enjoyed that the author was not trying to teach us about Nigerian-American culture, rather she was allowing us to experience it and catch on where we could. This was truly an immersive experience that I'm glad she was able to create. We even see Zelu be molded by and in her understanding of her culture from the beginning to the end.

At the end we are met with a Zelu that is drastically different, yet essentially the same as the character from the beginning. While I appreciated the introspection, headstrongness, and submission to adventure that guided Zelu through her character development journey, so much of what she experienced seemed so unrealistic that I struggled to connect with and really buy into her story. I think her character was written really well, but her story was difficult to engage with for me.

As most well written characters do, I know that Zelu will stick with me. She'll be like an old friend that I think of from time to time and wonder how she's doing.

Thank you to NetGalley, Nnedi Okorafor, and William Morrow for providing me with the opportunity read and review this eARC.

A truly magnificent work of fiction that refuses to fit within the constraints of one literary genre — Death of the Author follows Zelu, a disabled Naijamerican author whose life quickly evolves after writing a novel unlike any of her previous works. Sprinkled throughout Zelu’s story are excerpts from her sci-fi novel Rusted Robots and interviews with those closest to her.

I was wholly immersed and invested in Zelu’s story, and I could not put this book down. Okorafor’s writing packs a punch, and I hope she gets the recognition she deserves for this book.

I don’t want to spoil too much. I think this is a book that a reader deserves to experience fully without preconceived notions.

I highly recommend this one, and I will be surprised if it doesn’t rank among my top reads of 2025.

My rating: 5⭐️

Also after looking at the deluxe print edition, I will absolutely need a copy for my shelf. The easter eggs and details are just as stunning as the prose within the pages.
🤖🇳🇬

4.5 stars
Pretty amazing novel within a novel. It's the story of Zelu, a disabled Nigerian American author who is not very successful and the inspired sci-fi novel she writes that changes the trajectory of her life. I really liked Zelu: smart, strong, prickly, and brave. I didn't love some of the other characters (mostly for how they tried to manipulate Zelu) but they certainly felt real. I think I liked the characters in Zelu's novel the best of all. How the author kind of merges the two stories (Zelu's and the one Zelu writes) was mind bending!

Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for a free e-ARC of this book.

Death of the Author is a book within a book, in which the narrative is carried by the protagonist of each book. The protagonist of one of the narratives is Zelu is a complex person, born to parents who immigrated from Nigeria, female, paraplegic, and not accepted by her family because of her disability as well as because she is not as successful as her siblings - because of that, nothing she does is every quite enough. The protagonist of the other narrative is Ankara, a self-named humanoid robot living in a future in which humanity has died off - a robot who believes, quite sincerely, that the stories told by humanity are the key to the survival of her future. The two stories are told in parallel, and while the settings and situations are very different, the characters share a great deal in common.

If you're looking for a book that is clearly defined by genre, this isn't it. Zelu's narrative is literary fiction, while Ankara's narrative is science fiction; the entire novel is a compilation of both. I found Ankara's narrative to be more compelling; Zelu's narrative is a bit overwritten, and would have benefitted from being pruned a bit more in the editing process. Nonetheless, this is a fascinating novel that moved quickly as I read it, and which will appeal to a wide variety of readers.

I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book provided by Netgalley. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

"Show him the love and compassion humans were known for. Tell him a story." (388)

This line embodies the heart of the novel for me. Stories have the power to transform—they take you places. They’re essential for humanity, for connection, and for understanding. A story is a tool for lawyers, a bridge for college—to get in, to get out. You enter with one story and leave with another. The hope lies in the words, in the experience. Stories make you feel.

And this novel, The Death of the Author, made me feel alive. The irony of the title only adds to its depth.

There’s a moment in Chapter 18, "Aerographene"—my favorite chapter—when Zelu writes in her journal. She pours out her fears, hopes, past experiences of the day, mottos, and a heartfelt manifestation:
"Maybe I’ll break all the bones in my legs. It will be my fault. But I will continue. I’ve allowed myself to dream. Not of reality. I will never be able to walk. I know. But I want to see. I don’t expect, but maybe I am hoping.
Tomorrow is where my hope lives.
I can’t be normal, so I’ll be something else."

This passage struck me deeply, inspiring me to immediately grab my own journal—pen to paper, old-fashioned, just like Zelu. I reflected on how today feels, and what tomorrow might bring.

A writer’s journal often ends in poetry—something lasting, something meaningful. The final sentence is a breath exhaled, the chaos of the day spilled out. And yet, from every ink mark, we grow stronger. The pen becomes an extension of ourselves, breathing life back into us. Recirculating back to my very own poetry, but this novel just cemented my beliefs further. There’s a strange magic to it—a cycle where the dying tree gives us oxygen, fueling our creativity and connecting us to something bigger.

For Zelu, the tree that symbolizes loss gave her something profound—a peace offering, perhaps: I take these legs but here instead I give life; I give you loss, but now you forever have courage to always gain.

Zelu’s character is beautiful—real, vivid, and inspiring. She’s an author, a reader, a creation, and a creator. Ankara and Zelu. Writer, poet, dreamer. Okorafor captures the essence of a writer with such authenticity. And the family dynamics? So much rawness and truth!

GET IT! GET IT! GET IT!
5+5/5 🤎🤎🤎🤎🤎

A story within a story, a Sci-Fi inside a LitFic - this book completely blew me away with the geniously executed conclusion making me audibly gasp.

Zelu - a disabled Nigerian American women from a big family where all her siblings seem to be successful overachievers, gets fired from her job, her novel gets rejected, she appears to hit rock bottom. An idea comes to her and she writes a story about Androids and AI living on earth after human extinction that becomes a global bestseller. You will not always like Zelu, but you will still root for her the whole time.

This book tugged at my heartstrings the whole time. Her navigating her judgmental family, her inconsistent, often entitled fans, relatives in Nigeria, good old prejudice cause of her disability, even the plot of the book that she wrote.. It was a rollercoaster of emotions with an absolutely insane and mind blowing ending.

What does it takes to write the story? Can AI write a story? Can the reader write the story? “Creation flows both ways”

I will be thinking about this book for a very long time.

Also the Nigerian food descriptions made my mouth water and stomach growl that I actually had to find a local place serving some Jollof rice and it was delicious!!

Thank you NetGalley and William Morrow for sending the eARC for review consideration. All opinions are my own.

Wow! This is an absolute masterpiece. Once again, Nnedi Okorafor has proven why she remains a favorite author whose work I will always gladly reach for. This book is such a skillfully woven piece of science fiction and literary fiction rolled into one tale while still maintaining separately interwoven ideas. This tale is a story within a story that each stands on their own and gives us the best of both worlds.

In the novel, we meet Zelu, who is an American born Nigerian writer, adjunct professor, and paraplegic. She is the second child of her parents but is treated like the youngest due to her disability. But Zelu does not accept being defined by others based on the parameters of her physical body. At a very low point in her life, Zelu gives a proverbial fu to the world by sharing a story created from the wildest parts of her imagination and full of her Nigerian cultural identity, and the overwhelming response, shoots her to success and stardom. At the backdrop of all this is Zelu's home life, where she's just a girl, misunderstood by her family, constantly chastised for stepping out of the box she has been placed in, and continuously battling the many identities she is forced to navigate.

Zelu is not a particularly likeble character. She is headstrong, she is nuanced, she doesn't bend to the ideals others place on her, she focuses on the negatives of her life, and she demands to be seen and loved for exactly who she is, flaws and all. The success she has achieved is both welcomed and hated, as she realizes the world constantly seeks to take more and more of her without actually trying to understand her. At the same time, she has found an unexpected love (Msizi) who completely gets her in a way that all partners should understand and support each other. This book is full of all the nuances and drama that is to be expected of her Igbo Yoruba royal family. They equal care about her while dismissing her success as insignificant and weird. But all the success is not enough for Zelu. She seeks the stars and refuses to settle for anything less.

The other story within this novel is the sci-fic novel that shoots Zelu to stardom. Being in this otherworld of robotics and AI after humanity has been destroyed was fantastic, and the ending will blow your mind. It certainly blew mind. Here, we explore a reality where technology is sentient, and we witness a battle of wills and differences between these differing expressions of technology. The way that the negative biases and goodness of humanity were written into the codes of these forms of intelligence and executed without interrogation was so interesting to read.

Is it ever a true Nnedi story if a Masquerade doesn't appear? This novel felt like the ultimate culmination of Nnedi Okorafor as an author. This story showcases both the imaginative science fiction mind that gave us the mastery that is Binti, coupled with the humanity and cultural nuances of the Akata series. Usually, I am not the biggest fan of authors writing stories where the main character is an author, but this book blew past any expectations I could have had in the best way possible.

When I read a book like this I always think, "I should read more sci-fi!" "Creation flows both ways." It's a story within a story with a story. Inception with robots.
✅️ perceptions of reality distorted
✅️ strong women characters
✅️ reality and stories woven together
✅️ Ai gets theirs

This book's genre is difficult to pinpoint. Indeed, even the premise is difficult to explain. (And perhaps, that's the whole point.) It's being marketed as science fiction (subgenre: africanfuturism as defined by the author). However, there may not be enough sci-fi elements to appease ardent sci-fi readers. The main focus of the book is Zelu, an author, who writes a sci-fi book called Rusted Robots. Despite the fact that Rusted Robots doesn't take up much of the book, it is still a compelling story. I empathized with Ankara's (a robot) struggles to exist in a post-human world. The world-building in this portion of the novel did leave me with questions. I would have preferred a more definitive and specific answer as to what happened to the world. Ankara's story is so compelling, and I wished there were more scenes of Ankara' story with Ijele, Udide, and even the Ghosts and Trippers.

This book could also be categorized as literary fiction, and I think it most definitely would appeal to readers of lit-fic. Zelu's story is an examination of these themes: creation, authorship, identity, fame (including cancel culture), grief, ablism, hope, culture, family, racism, sexism, and essentially, what it means to be human. Yes, there's a lot going on in this book. I enjoyed reading about Zelu's existence, relationships, history, and identity in the context of her Nigerian cultures (Igbo and Yoruba). Further, I think Zelu's journey to making her robotic legs (exo) a part of her body and identity is an interesting commentary about the pros and cons of robotics and AI. However, because of the book's pacing, some themes were quickly discussed, some were emphasized over and over, and others were a bit on the nose. I do think that the pacing was off in this book. There are moments of intense action, and then there are moments where the story lingers on a certain feeling or emotion for too long.

The ending of the book will stay with me for a long time. This is the mark of a good author.

Thanks to NetGalley & William Morrow for providing me with an eARC to review.

This is a fun read that mixes contemporary fiction with sci-fi/Afro-futurism. The story held my interest and I found myself engrossed in the main character's life and decisions.

I really, REALLY enjoyed reading this. However, I have seen it marketed as science fiction and that, to me, is incorrect. I know that the story within a story is science fiction, but to me, the better comp would be Yellowface by RF Kuang. Like Yellowface, Death of the Author follows a writer struggling to get their first big break in publishing when a book far outside of their usual genre and style of writing makes it huge. Though this book lacks the plagiarism aspect, it still deals a ton with the social media aspects of fame, of discussions of authenticity in writing (with Zelu's disability). I think Zelu is a more likable and complex character than June, sure, but there are still some similar themes. The biggest thing holding me back from really enjoying this was that I was constantly waiting for the science fiction element to start. Would it be the ominous AI assistant? The self-driving cars? The billionaire traveling to the moon? But it just... never happened. Without that expectation, I would really have nothing to be disappointed in. The novel is beautifully written with a great character arc.

This one is going to make me think for a while. I enjoyed how the narratives interwove with one another, and speaks to what storytelling means and the impacts it has on an individual and a society. I found the main character a little abrasive and frustrating, which means I could really relate to her friends and family who are giving interview about her. But on the other hand I could understand why she would feel that way, and then upon reaching the ending it made me re-evaluate everything. I can't speak to the Nigerian American and Disability rep, but those were anchoring points in the novel.

This is a book that will change the way one looks at writing, authorship, ownership and humanity.
A story within a story, a world on the brink. The stories of Zelu, an outsider, othered by her family, co-workers and students, and the story of Ankara, also othered for it's close association to humanity, are woven together beautifully.
Zelu is out of options as her life slowly closes in on her. Inspiration strikes and her book, Rusted Robots, becomes an international sensation. The future in this book feels closer to now than ever before as we grapple with robotics, artificial intelligence and climate issues.

This was a good book and had a good balance between the plot of the story we’re following and the plot of the book that the main character wrote. However, the narrative got very bogged down in random details like the main character’s sister having to pepper spray a random guy, and the main character’s mother disliking the brother’s cat.

Thanks to William Morrow for the gifted copy!

Fantasy reading level: Beginner to medium; this could be categorized as literary fiction with a sci fi element
Perspectives: Black (Nigerian), disabled (parapalegic)

You want to read this for... a blended-genre discussion on humanity, individuality, the future of AI and robotics with Nigerian and disability rep.

About the book: Zelu needs a boost in her career - she just lost her job at a university and her latest novel was rejected. She decides to take a risk and write a novel unlike any she's written before, a sci fi drama centered on androids and AI, and it changes everything.

My review: DEATH OF THE AUTHOR is told with two alternating stories: Zelu's life, and excerpts from her book, Rusted Robots. Her life reads more like literary fiction and her book like sci fi, but explained well to appeal to a broader audience. I adored this blended method of storytelling to really highlight themes of humanity and identity.

Zelu also comes from a high-achieving Nigerian family who does not always agree with her decisions, and I appreciated how her family and her background came into play throughout the whole book. I love how Zelu personally took on some of the robotic technology with her exos, giving her the ability to walk and move freely instead of be bound to a wheelchair, and how that altered how she was viewed by so many. (My biomedical engineer heart had fun with this part).

This took me a few days to read and process. It's a novel that I really appreciate, and I am left thinking about the ending and the future of AI / technology. Highly recommend picking this one up!

Thanks to Nnedi Okorafor, William Morrow, and NetGalley for access to the Advanced Reader Copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

This is a book destined to be selected for book lists and awards in the coming year. Well written and engaging, the book features a protagonist, Zelu, who charts her own path in her life, frequently with harsh criticism of her family and others. Yet she perseveres. While on her journey, she finds herself and learns to accept herself and others.

With themes of the importance to appreciate uniqueness, acceptance, finding your way, and the value of stories, this book provides profound insight on judgement in our society and what it means to be human. This is also one of those books that you will be quoting passages from to your friends. Recommended.