Nnedi Okorafor has an essay over at The Nebula Awards site about Africa’s relationship with science fiction, as well as a discussion on Penguin’s decision to make science fiction ineligible for The Penguin Prize for African Writing.

“As (director Tchidi) Chikere said, African audiences don’t feel that science fiction is really concerned with what’s real, what’s present…. I can see how science fiction can be foreign to many Africans. Technology tends to play a different role on the continent. There is a weird divide and connection between the technologically advanced and the ancient. For example: People will have cells phones in rural villages yet have no plumbing or electricity or one will opt to buy a laptop instead of a desktop computer because a laptop has its own power supply, most useful for when “NEPA takes the lights”.

But there’s another layer to the issue: Colonialism and the colonizers existing attitudes about what is literature and what is not. The foundation of what great literature is in Africa is too often defined by the West and the West still has trouble viewing genre fiction as true literature.” (via Mumpsimus)

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