Novelist Nnedi Okorafor has won the World Fantasy Award for her novel, Who Fears Death.
Author Jeff VanderMeer described the book: “[The novel] is a powerful combination of science fiction, fantasy, African folklore, and stark realism. It tells the story of Onyesonwu, a woman of extraordinary powers in a post-apocalyptic West Africa, a world of perils and mysteries, of lost technologies and brutal wars. Onyesonwu’s name means “Who fears death?”, and her birth is the result of rape used as a weapon in battle; this legacy affects the woman she becomes, and the novel portrays her education as a sorceress and her quest to bring order and peace to her life and world.”
The announcement was made at the World Fantasy Convention in San Diego. We’ve included the other award winners below…
Novella: Elizabeth Hand, “The Maiden Flight of McCauley’s Bellerophon” (Stories: All-New Tales)
Short Story: Joyce Carol Oates, “Fossil-Figures” (Stories: All-New Tales)
Anthology: “My Mother She Killed Me, My Father He Ate Me” (Penguin), edited by Kate Bernheimer & Carmen Gimenez Smith
Collection: “What I Didn’t See and Other Stories” by Karen Joy Fowler (Small Beer Press)
Artist: Kinuko Y. Craft
Special Award-Professional: Marc Gascoigne, for Angry Robot
Special Award-Non-professional: Alisa Krasnostein, for Twelfth Planet Press
(Image via Okorafor’s Twitter page)