Afrofuturism different from Africanfuturism
Difference from Africanfuturism
In 2019, Nnedi Okorafor, a Nigerian-American writer of fantasy and science fiction, began strongly rejecting the term "afrofuturism" as a label for her work and coined the terms "Africanfuturism" and "Africanjujuism" to describe her works and works like hers. In October 2019, she published an essay titled "Defining Africanfuturism" that defines both terms in detail. In that essay, she defined Africanfuturism as a sub-category of science fiction that is "directly rooted in African culture, history, mythology and point-of-view and does not privilege or center the West", is centered with optimistic "visions in the future", and is written (and centered on) "people of African descent" while rooted in the African continent. As such, its center is African, often does extend upon the continent of Africa, and includes the black diaspora, including fantasy that is set in the future, making a narrative "more science fiction than fantasy" and typically has mystical elements. She differentiated this from Afrofuturism, which she said "positioned African American themes and concerns" at the center of its definition. She also described Africanjujuism as a subcategory of fantasy that "acknowledges the seamless blend of true existing African spiritualities and cosmologies with the imaginative."In August 2020, Hope Wabuke, a writer and assistant professor at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln of English and creative writing, noted that Afrofuturism, coined by Mark Dery, a white critic, in 1993, treats African-American themes and concerns in the "context of twentieth-century technoculture", which was later expanded by Alondra Nelson, arguing that Dery's conception of blackness began in 1619 and "is marked solely by the ensuing 400 years of violation by whiteness" that he portrayed as "potentially irreparable". Critical of this definition, saying it lacks the qualities of the "Black American diasporic imagination" and ability to conceive of "Blackness outside of the Black American diaspora" or independent from whiteness, Wabuke further explains how Africanfuturism is more specific and rids itself of the "othering of the white gaze and the de facto colonial Western mindset", free from what she calls the "white Western gaze" and saying this is the main difference "between Afrofuturism and Africanfuturism". She adds that, in her view, Africanfuturism has a different outlook and perspective than "mainstream Western and American science fiction and fantasy" and even Afrofuturism which is "married to the white Western gaze". Wabuke goes on to explain Africanfuturist and Africanjujuist themes in Okorafor's Who Fears Death and Zahrah the Windseeker, Akwaeke Emezi's Pet, and Buchi Emecheta's The Rape of Shavi.In February 2021, Aigner Loren Wilson of Tor.com explained the difficulty of finding books in the subgenre because many institutions "treat Africanfuturism and Afrofuturism like the same thing" even though the distinction between them is plain. She said that Africanfuturism is "centered in and about Africa and their people" while Afrofuturism is a sci-fi subcategory which is about "Black people within the diaspora", often including stories of those outside Africa, including in "colonized Western societies".
Wilson further outlined a list of stories and books from the genre, highlighting Africanfuturism: An Anthology (edited by Wole Talabi), Namwali Serpell's The Old Drift, Nnedi Okorafor's Lagoon, Nicky Drayden's The Prey of Gods, Oghenechovwen Donald Ekpeki's Ife-Iyoku, the Tale of Imadeyunuagbon, and Tochi Onyebuchi's War Girls. Another reviewer called Okorafor's Lagoon, which "recounts the story of the arrival of aliens in Nigeria", as an Africanfuturist work which requires a reader who is "actively engaged in co-creating the alternative future that the novel is constructing", meaning that the reader becomes part of the "creative conversation".Gary K. Wolfe reviewed Africanfuturism: An Anthology, which was edited by Wole Talabi, in February 2021. He credits Nnedi Okorafor for coining "Africanfuturism", noting its describes "more Africa-centered SF", although saying he is not sure whether her term "Africanjujuism", a parallel term for fantasy, will catch on. While saying that both are useful, he says that he does not like how they have to "do with the root, not the prefix", with "futurism" only describing a bit of science fiction and fantasy. He still calls the book a "solid anthology", saying it challenges the idea of viewing African science fiction as monolithic. Stories in the book include "Egoli" by T. L. Huchu, "Yat Madit" by Dilman Dila, "Behind Our Irises" by Tlotlo Tsamaase, "Fort Kwame" by Derek Lubangakene, "Rainmaker" by Mazi Nwonwu, "Fruit of the Calabash" by Rafeeat Aliyu, "Lekki Lekki" by Mame Bougouma Diene, and "Sunrise" by Nnedi Okorafor.Financial Times writer David Pilling wrote that Africancentrism "draws on the past, both real and imagined, to depict a liberated version of the future" which is planted in the African, rather than African-American, experience. He also notes criticism of Black Panther from some like Patrick Gathara, who says its depiction of Africa "differs little from the colonial view", and that one of Okorafor's books, Binti, is being "adapted for television by Hulu", arguing that its success is part of a wave of Africanfuturism.