With news of Nnedi Okorafor’s World Fantasy award-winning novel Who Fears Death being optioned by HBO, FIB can’t help but wonder if the network is scrambling for its next big ticket show as Game of Thrones hits the home stretch.
The Nigerian-American author of Binti and The Book of Phoenix, broke the news on social media, noting that the development had been “four years in the making”.
Who Fears Death is set in Saharan Africa, in a post-apocalyptic society where the lighter-skinned Nuru people are perpetrators of the oppression and terrorization of the darker-skinned Okeke people. The fantasy novel revolves around a young protagonist, sorceress Onyesonwu – a product of her mother’s rape, and bearing the features of the perpetrator – abandoned in the desert. As Onyesonwu matures and grows into her powers, she soon learns that her fate is aligned with that of her people, the Okeke.
And guess who has signed on as executive producer? None other than the author of A Song of Ice and Fire, George R.R. Martin. Without detracting from Okorafor’s success, we can’t help but feel HBO is clutching at straws to fill the looming gigantic void left when Game of Thrones wraps up their final season… and keep Martin and his controversial, homicidal ramblings (and their associated rating spikes) on the payroll.
Having said that, Okorafor’s examination of racial and gender inequality and genital mutilation will make for an eye-opening and fantastical telling of these disturbing realities, particularly in the wake of Hulu’s chilling dystopian success, The Handmaid’s Tale.
Now, if only George would sit the Stark down and smash out Winds of Winter, before we all go Ramsey Bolton on his ass.
