Okorafor, NNEDI: Lagoon (Cover)
The continent is coarse, consists of a variety of countries, traditions, cultures and political systems – yet in Europe and North America “Africa” Almost as a magpond all-encompassing vocabulary.
In relation to the science fiction culture of interest here, Africa is an overview of the various ambitions scattered over the continent in this literature and film direction. Especially since the ideas of afrofuturism bear a significantly Pan-African train. The African SF culture coincides with the afrofuturism, which on the one hand is a political movement, on the other hand pop cultural asthetics.
“Central concern of Afrofuturism is an imagination of the future without primacy of a perspective of the Global North”, Write Ivo Ritzer in a contribution to SF movies from Africa. And continues to lead that the movement in the diaspora has developed and then rejected from longing for a urban on Africa.
The limited space here saves the meanwhile rich filmmaking of the continent. Unfortunately, there was no room for North Africa. For example, Ahmed Khaled Towfik / Tawfik is important; A doctor who writes a variety of different genres. Interestingly sure to be in English translated novel “Utopia”, who describes an agypal company in 2023. There is end-time mood: The rich have championed and built walls. A bored boy from the upper class is looking for the poor neighborhoods. No particularly new idea, but related to agypal conditions certainly interesting. Especially as Towfik the first Arabic-speaking author was starting to write Science Fiction.
Start ramp at the wrong place
Africa seems to be a forgotten continent in terms of Science Fiction. Frequently, the literary impulses go from the diaspora. Authors with African roots create the jump to renowned foreign publishers. They master a world-run language, publish in English or French. Do you know Africa alone from your relatives? From two visit a year? Must live in Africa and work to write African SF?
Maybe the questions are wrongly formulated. Maybe the origin of the centuries long colonialism shifts from the continent to the diaspora. International somewhat more acquainted SF authors from Africa usually do not live (more) there or are already born in North America or Europe. Certainly, the infrastructure in Africa is another than out. The superstructure that Science Fiction is also popular in Africa, is certainly together with globalization. Information is exercise faster. To set up blogs quickly. Provided the framework conditions right.
Hybrid from technology and tradition
Nnedi Okorafor has Nigerian roots, teaches Creative Writing at the University of Buffalo. In the novel “Binti” Describes Nnedi Okorafor the path of the protagonist from a village whose community still lives in certain traditions. Binti trends, for example, leg rings to protect himself from snake piss. In the control of access to the spaceship, the employee asks the Security Check, which it has with these metal rings. You do not need them anymore. Binti, however, is there. So strange the Auberertal environment may also be, binti stop at your memory at home. At the same time, she opens to a foreign culture.
NNEDI OKORAFOR. Image: Cheetah Witch / CC-BY-SA-4.0
The author sets the African home against space. Binti’s family can not understand how they can travel to the intergalactic universitat. The protagonist made a corresponding graduation and the journey into space to study and work there is not a long hotel.
Repeated she points to her origin. The Himba are not an invention of the author, but today mainly live in the north of Namibia. The Sudwestfrican country is represented by Savanna and Weste; Just like in the neighboring Botswana, the cattle breeding is of green importance. How should a highly technologized science fiction work in a country that builds predominantly on livestock? Thoughtful goods an SF literature, which is busy with technical stratification instead of classic with space travel.
In the SF act hour Namibia then before the introduction of a revolutionary technology. There is much conceivable: a watering system coupled to a solar cell surface and thus supplies both energy and nutrients. From the Atlantic, water is drawn and desalinated. A smart measuring apparatus exerts the flow values and nutrient content. So far, Namibia waives solar energy because Sudafrika provides constant cheap coal. The future could look different.
Good science fiction goods when the present is speculated in the future. Something already available is spelled up, expanded and deliberately excreted.
The Himba are a technical ethnicity – a broadcasting contribution in Germany radio describes your life you drove like 100 years ago. Of the “Primitivism” can be considered one of the first stereotypes when it comes to life in rival Africa. Some is dedicated in the literature – but there is no need for infrastructure in various African nations.
Okorafor discusses this difference as a profitable insight into the essence of African Science Fiction. Your center of life in the US will influence your view of the topic.
The idea of integrating Africa into the Space Age, do not prite a few SF works from Africa. This could also be read as the impact of colonialism: the pre-colonial history was explored for a long time by murication. In recent publications, this access is usually considered critical. Oral History is exposed to manipulation and writes power interests – simple people color the view of the chiris, rulers and pharaohs. The self-perception as “unkorn” leads to the greeting of a tradition, lot away from the canon and yet influenced by him. Not only the colonial power, including the African countries have their own history and interpretation patterns.
Okorafor writes in an essay, a well-known Nigerian film director did not tell her, Africa was not ready for pure SF. Tchidi chier greeted this:
The Themes aren’t Taken Seriously. Science Fiction Will Come Here When It Is Relevant To The People of Africa. Right Now, Africans Are Bothered About Ies of Bad Leadership, The Food Crisis in East Africa, Refugees in The Congo, Militans Here in Nigeria. Africans Are Bothered About Food, Roads, Electricity, Water Wars, Famine, etc, Not SpaceCrafts and Spaceships. Only Stories That Explore thesis Everyday Realities Are Considered Relevant to US for Now.
The science fiction is particularly important to this exercise. Movies and Bucher can also entertain. Chier says that for SF the existential problems must be cleared.
In Nigeria, the strongest film industry produces on the African continent. Not from about approximately the term Nollywood appears based on Hollywood. Nollywood has their own topics that hardly open the SF genre.
No wonder. In classic science fiction you can not find any African characters. Also SF Stories, who play in Africa are RAR. It goes slowly: the Zimbabwich author Ivor W. Hartmann, for example, published the anthology “Afro SF. Science Fiction by African Writers” with good a dozen authors in his own micro.
Science Fiction can also describe visions of the future on the other side, addressing foreign (the aliens). Through the parabelity of some SF amendment, it is possible to make statements on the status quo of the social and technological stress of the African continent. Since it is embedded in fictional actions, this critique can be more subtle work.