Book Musing: Akata Woman by Nnedi Okorafor

 

Akata Woman

by Nnedi Okorafor

I have been thoroughly fascinated by this series since the beginning, with Akata Witch and Akata Warrior. I have enjoyed reading them myself, but this time I listened to part of the book on audio. Listening was even better so I could hear the pronunciation of the words by a wonderful reader, Nene Nwoko. Nwoko is an actress born and raised in Nigeria who now lives in America.

Sunny Nwazue is the main character, growing from a girl in the first book to a young woman by the third book. She was born with albinism, so she has always felt like an outsider but when she finds out she has magic in her, things begin to get better. She ends up being doubled, which makes her unusual even among Leopard People, the magic folk, and an outsider again. Being doubled means her spirit face, Anyanwu, is separated from her and can go out on its’ own, which it often does. This frustrates Sunny to no end.

Luckily Sunny has some good friends – Chichi, Sasha, and Orlu. They are also Leopard people, each on their own journey of learning. Luckily, Chichi is there to fill in gaps in Sunny’s knowledge because she was raised knowing she was a Leopard person, which Sunny was unaware. Her parents are still clueless about it, though Sunny’s mother has some inkling that she is more like her grandmother than any of the would be comfortable with.

Sunny also has two brothers who always come into the stories as do her parents. I like this aspect of the stories, as so often, main characters don’t seem to have parents or siblings for one reason or another. They operate in isolation which isn’t reality for many of us. I like seeing how family’s interact in fantastical books.

One of my favorite minor characters in the book is a wasp creature that lives in Sunny’s room and makes beautiful sculptures for her every day. A wasp is not something you would see as a benevolent creature in too many books. I like the unusual choice.

One thing I love about these books is how they are influenced by the folklore of Nigeria. In the folklore, Anansi is a God who sometimes takes the form of a spider. Anansi has a lot to do with knowledge and stories. I first read of Anansi in a picture book then later in Neil Gaiman’s Anansi Boys. Here, the spider is called Udide and never takes a human form.

Udide tasks Sunny and her friend Chichi with bringing back a ghazal that Udide wrote a millennia ago and was stolen by the Nim women, who Sunny and Chichi are descended from. Udide threatens to rain down horrible destruction on the human world if Sunny and Chichi don’t retrieve it for Udide.

In this adventure, we learn the sad and harsh background of Chichi’s mother. An interesting story in its’ own right. Then the four friends have to go on a magical journey together on The Road. It takes them to a fantastical land, with creatures both friendly and antagonistic.

The book also touches on the political unrest in Nigeria and at the end, the Covid pandemic. This is important to grounding the story in the real world, something that can’t be ignored, and yet not heavy handed or the central focus of the story.

It seems clear that Okorafor is leaving the door open for another book in this series. I will be watching for it. In the meantime, she has many other books to explore.