Shelf Control #118: Who Fears Death by Nnedi Okorafor

Welcome to Shelf Control — an original feature created and hosted by Bookshelf Fantasies.

Shelf Control is a weekly celebration of the unread books on our shelves. Pick a book you own but haven’t read, write a post about it (suggestions: include what it’s about, why you want to read it, and when you got it), and link up! For more info on what Shelf Control is all about, check out my introductory post, here.

Want to join in? Shelf Control posts go up every Wednesday. See the guidelines at the bottom of the post, and jump on board!

Title: Who Fears Death
Author: Nnedi Okorafor
Published: 2010
Length: 386 pages

What it’s about (synopsis via Goodreads):

An award-winning literary author presents her first foray into supernatural fantasy with a novel of post-apocalyptic Africa.

In a far future, post-nuclear-holocaust Africa, genocide plagues one region. The aggressors, the Nuru, have decided to follow the Great Book and exterminate the Okeke. But when the only surviving member of a slain Okeke village is brutally raped, she manages to escape, wandering farther into the desert. She gives birth to a baby girl with hair and skin the color of sand and instinctively knows that her daughter is different. She names her daughter Onyesonwu, which means “Who Fears Death?” in an ancient African tongue.

Reared under the tutelage of a mysterious and traditional shaman, Onyesonwu discovers her magical destiny – to end the genocide of her people. The journey to fulfill her destiny will force her to grapple with nature, tradition, history, true love, the spiritual mysteries of her culture – and eventually death itself.

How and when I got it:

I bought this book last summer… so relative to some of the other books on my shelves, it hasn’t been all that long!

Why I want to read it:

After reading Binti and Lagoon, I knew I wanted to read more by this author, and then when it was announced that Who Fears Death was being adapted into a TV series for HBO, with George R. R. Martin producing — well, I ran right out and picked up a copy. I plan to take it with me when I travel this summer, and hope it’s amazing!

__________________________________

Want to participate in Shelf Control? Here’s how: