Literary Afrofuturism in the Twenty-First Century

<b>Finalist 2021 Locus Award</b><br> <br> In <i>Literary Afrofuturism in the Twenty-First Century </i>eminent contributors pay tribute to Afrofuturism as a powerful and evolving aesthetic practice that communicates the experience of science technology and race across centuries continents and cultures. While Ryan Coogler and Janelle Monáe may have helped bring the genre into contemporary pop consciousness it in fact extends back to the writing of eighteenth-century poet Phyllis Wheatley and has continued in the work of Samuel R. Delany Octavia E. Butler N. K. Jemisin and many others. In examining this heritage contributors in this volume question generic boundaries recover lost artists and introduce new ones and explore how the meteoric rise of a new pan-African speculative literary tradition may or may not connect with Afrofuturism.<br>  <br> Additionally the editors have marshaled some of today's most exciting writers for a roundtable discussion of the genre: Bill Campbell Minister Faust Nalo Hopkinson N. K. Jemisin Chinelo Onwualu Nisi Shawl and Nick Wood. Pioneering author and editor Sheree R. Thomas limns how black women have led new developments in contemporary Afrofuturism and artist Stacey Robinson's illustrations orient readers to the spirited themes of this enduring and consequential literary tradition.<br> <br>