A Virtual Explosion of Black Science Fiction

Black Authors Series

In celebration of Black History Month, we continue our series featuring great black writers from four different genres. Last week's focus was on Romance. This week, we are excited to put the spotlight on Science Fiction and Fantasy, known to be particularly white- and male-dominated genres. That's why it's so important to call attention to the many brilliant black authors who have often faced discrimination in the publishing industry.

Case in point: Shortly after winning a Nebula Award, Samuel R. Delaney had a proposal for a series of stories rejected from a science fiction publication, because editors didn't think that their white sci-fi readers would relate to the half-Senegalese protagonist. He later published the piece as the highly influential novel, Nova. Here, we present nine seminal authors who have created spellbinding speculative fiction.

The Roots of Afrofuturism

Afrofuturism is a term coined by Mark Dery in his 1994 essay "Black to the Future," included in this anthology. He defined it as "speculative fiction that treats African-American themes and addresses African-American concerns in the context of twentieth century technoculture." Since then, the concept has been embraced, expanded, and enhanced by a host of artists as diverse as Jean-Michel Basquiat and Janelle Monáe.

Samuel R. Delaney
The Nebula Award-winning Dahlgren evokes the mind-bending future city of Bellona, a mecca for marginalized people. Published in 1975, the groundbreaking novel explores race, sexuality, and identity in ways the genre had never done before.

Octavia E. Butler
Read any "Best of SF/F" list and you'll find Butler's name, regardless of race and gender. The first science fiction writer to win the MacArthur Fellowship, she started writing sci-fi as a teen. It's hard to go wrong with any of her books, which have been awarded multiple Hugo and Nebula Awards. A compilation of her gripping Xenogenesis trilogy, Lilith's Brood (1987) imagines a complex and believable postapocalyptic world, peopled by a powerful, unearthly tribe of beings.

Nalo Hopkinson
The Jamaican-born, Canadian Hopkinson infuses her work with elements of Afro-Caribbean folklore. Her debut novel Brown Girl in the Ring (1998) imagines a bleak future, in which a young girl must tap into the ancient truths and eternal powers passed down through the generations.

International Forces

Much of black science fiction employs elements of folklore that can be traced back to the author's heritage. Here we present three non-American black authors, whose stories are rooted deeply in the culture and traditions of their native lands.

Ben Okri
Nigerian author Okri's Booker Prize-winning The Famished Road tells the story of Azaro, a spirit child trapped between life and death. Drawing from the Yoruba traditions and culture, the 1991 novel combines brilliant writing with rich, visceral surrealism.

Karen Lord
Award-winning Barbadian author Lord's 2013 The Best of All Possible Worlds finds a proud and reserved alien society fleeing their destroyed homeland and attempting to settle on a new planet. But this means learning to live with the indigenous people of their adopted home.

Marlon James
Drawing comparisons to Tolkien and Martin, James was the first Jamaican author to win the Man Booker Prize in 2015. His bestselling 2019 novel Black Leopard, Red Wolf, the first in a planned trilogy, combines myth, fantasy, and history in the story of a mercenary hired to track a missing child.

The Voices of the Future

The legendary Octavia Butler took umbrage when a peer commented that he didn't think it was necessary to have black characters in sci-fi because racial diversity could be portrayed using extraterrestrials. Her response: "Science fiction reaches into the future, the past, the human mind. It reaches out to other worlds and into other dimensions. Is it really so limited, then, that it cannot reach into the lives of ordinary everyday humans who happen not to be white?" #Truth!

Nnedi Okorafor
2011's YA fantasy Akata Witch has won rave reviews from the likes of Neil Gaiman and Ursula K. Le Guin. This heart-pounding tale of magic and mystery presents Sunny Nwazue, a young Nigerian albino girl discovering her hidden powers.

N.K. Jemisin
John Scalzi, the former president of the Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America, called Jemisin "the most important speculative writer of her generation." She is the first author to win the Hugo Award for three consecutive years with her brilliant Broken Earth trilogy. Go ahead and treat yourself to the full set. You won't be sorry!

Ta-Nehisi Coates
The National Book Award-winning Coates has said, "black history is so often presented as 'eat your vegetables,' but I wanted Lord of the Rings." This was his vision with The Water Dancer, a propulsive, transcendent historical novel about a young man born into slavery who discovers he possesses powerful abilities.

Ready to explore some magical worlds and alternate realities? These are just a handful of the talented black authors who are creating awesome science fiction and fantasy. Please let us know if we missed any of your favorites.

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Read more by Ashly Moore Sheldon