Spiritual Resistance and Futuristic Identity in Nnedi Okorafor's Who Fears Death

Abstract

In this paper, Nnedi Okorafor’s Who Fears Death is analyzed through two parallel lenses: Afrojujuism and Afrofuturism. The novel brings together African religion, heritage, technology, and the desolate post-apocalyptic settings to create an alternative image of the future for Africans. The novel presents Onyesonwu's spiritual journey as central to the exploration and rejection of colonial accounts of the past, and underscores the importance of ancestral knowledge. Through comparative literary analysis, this paper contends that while Afrojujuism provides the novel’s philosophical framework, it is with Afrofuturism that the novel’s political and technological vision takes shape. Furthermore, the novel's integration of myth, magic, and speculative science suggests that African speculative fiction transcends traditional genre limitations. In blending spiritual heritage with futuristic possibilities, Who Fears Death further redefines Black identity, gender, and resistance from a decolonizing perspective. The article contributes to this discussion by illustrating that Afrojujuist and Afrofuturist aesthetics combine to transform the way Africa and its fictional future(s) are presented in literature.