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How Nnedi Okorafor and Black Panther Helped Debut Author Agnes Gomillion Discover Afrofuturism
Today, debut author Agnes Gomillion, whose acclaimed novel The Record Keeper—a tale of a Black woman awakening to the struggle for racial justice is a post-apocalyptic future America—is out this week, joins us to discuss how, in the process of trying to sell her book, she discovered what she’d actually written… with a little help from her editor, an acclaimed sci-fi author, and a Marvel superhero.
The business side of the publishing industry is, at times, heartless. It specializes in turning art, an expression of emotive beauty, into a commodity—something to be sold.
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Part of the commodifying process, I’ve learned, is letting a book get categorized and edited until it fits neatly onto a “bookshelf” readers recognize. For me, a newcomer to the industry, the process of labeling my debut novel, The Record Keeper, was tumultuous.
The Record Keeper is about a young woman who frees her people from slavery in the post-apocalyptic American South. It’s being touted as part of the burgeoning Afrofuturism genre. And yet, when I began writing it, I had no idea what Afrofuturism was.
Instead, I set out to create a period piece tailored for a modern audience and helmed by my powerhouse heroine, Arika Cobane. I had Morrison’s neo-slave narrative Beloved in mind, and I wanted to rejuvenate the slave narrative genre. I had dreams of making a narrative as vital to readers as A Brave New World and 1984, and I spent many research hours excavating gems of African-American wisdom and embedding their message into Arika’s character arc.
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It wasn’t until I began writing that I realized a glitch in my plan: the fierce heroine I wanted to write about didn’t fit in the antebellum period piece I wanted to write. A female as brave and brown as Arika would have been intolerable to antebellum America; they would have lynched her for disobedience and her story would have concluded tragically. So, by necessity, I forwent the historical fiction label.
Instead, I threw myself into creating a new world for Arika: a future America where her story could expose both her potential and Black history. After the idea of a reimagined American south came to me, my writing flowed easily. By freeing my heroine to reach her potential; I’d also, in a way, freed myself.
As I edited the novel, enriching the story with historical references, I also spent an inordinate amount of time imagining the aesthetics of future Black America. I made Power Point collages with clippings from every era of Afro-American culture. I added elements of modern technology and, just because, I threw in Star Trek paraphernalia. I chose fabric and jewelry, shoes and hairstyles.
To my surprise, I found the look of Arika’s future world was just as energizing to me as it’s historical significance. In my notes, I labeled the exciting aesthetic I’d created “Afro-techno” and, when I finished my manuscript, I pitched it as a genre-bending mash-up: a cross between Beloved and The Hunger Games; Twelve Years a Slave meets Star Trek; Octavia Butler’s Kindred—but set in the future.
I queried every agent interested in literary African-American fiction, trying to explain to them that this Afro-techno aesthetic I’d created was exactly what their audience unknowingly craved: a story about the pain of slavery told through the eyes of a heroine who wasn’t limited by the realities of history. In the future America south, Arika could experience slavery and also use her Black girl magic to overthrow her captors. More, through Arika’s story, readers could experience the catharsis of freedom along with her.
Well, after a few months of queries, I got a few bites of curiosity. But, in the end, no literary fiction agents were interested in a dystopian book with a commercial vibe. And so, with great reluctance, I let go of the literary African-American Fiction label.
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It wasn’t for a few more months that a friend of mine recommended that I check out Nnedi Okorafor. I did some research and, finally, discovered that what I’d been calling Afro-techno was really Afrofuturism: a multi-discipline artistic movement that had been thriving for decades and was currently gaining momentum.
I settled firmly on the Afrofuturism label and, finally, I had a viable pitch for my manuscript: Nnedi Okorafor’s Who Fears Death set in post-apocalyptic America. A few months later, I signed with a literary agency that represents several notable women who write Black science fiction.
Because The Record Keeper weaves world-building with history in its exposition, my agent and I struggled to convince science fiction editors that the book’s relatively slow start was necessary to the ultimate story. It wasn’t until the release of Marvel Studio’s Black Panther movie that the appeal of my novel became more cognizable. Within months of Black Panther’s debut, The Record Keeper was under contract and the rest was history—or at least that’s what I thought.
As it turned out, my struggle with labels was far from over. As I worked on the final edits with my editor, Gary Budden, I found myself explaining again and again the cultural and historical significance of some of my favorite parts of the book. I laid-out what a neo-slave narrative was and defended the elements of the book that were vital to the genre.
Gary was outstanding at shaping The Record Keeper into a book science fiction fans would appreciate while, at the same time, helping it stay true to its slave narrative roots. By the time it went to print, the final product was better than anything I could have imagined because—I’m proud to say—it’s not like anything that’s been written before.
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In early reviews it’s been described as both, “A fierce and absorbing tale of a heroine finding her own power…” and, “A ruthlessly honest confrontation of racism.” It’s truly a mash-up of historical fiction, slave-narrative, and dystopia.
In initial interviews, I got asked a lot about worldbuilding and futuristic swords. But thanks to my labeling struggles, I’ve become adept at geeking out over cool bits of sci-fi while, simultaneously, infusing the geekiness with cultural insight. As time goes on, I’m fielding more questions about the book’s history and purpose, and I love discussing how the futuristic details help me to explain the past and expose the tragedies of modern day American racism.
When I started writing The Record Keeper, I didn’t know that I needed to fit my book onto an existing “bookshelf” in order to sell it. And, despite my trouble with labels, I’m grateful for my naïveté. Because of it, I inadvertently wrote in a gap I didn’t know existed: the magical place where sci-fi, historical fiction, and slave-narratives collide.