Voice and Identity Formation in Nnedi Okorafor’s Binti trilogy: an Afrofuturistic Perspective

Abstract

As a thriving contemporary movement, Afrofuturism has attracted black diasporic writers from many Western and non-Western countries. Afrofuturism has been described by cultural critics as a way of looking, navigating and imagining future conditions of life through a black perspective. Along the history, all the contributions of black women’s identity in Africa mainly those in the Diaspora to a large part has been neglected, and while white females stood up for their rights through the mainstream of Feminism, colored women felt the need to have movements of their own after being rejected by the newly created white ideologies. The efforts of the movement’s pioneers have led to the repossession of Black womanhood in the black literature. Analysis of the African novels by female writers is necessary to redefine African female identity through the lenses of Afrofuturism. This study aims to explore the formation of voice and identity in Okorafor’s Binti trilogy, where blackness is technologically managed. The search for voice, identity, independence of thought and empowerment are the central features of the characters of Nnedi Okorafor’s Binti trilogy which will be analyzed in this study.