Black science fiction
Although the concept of science fiction as a discrete genre had already emerged in the late 19th century, its early black exponents do not appear to have been influenced by each other.
[10] The subject of Delany's serial novel is a successful slave revolt in the Southern states and the founding of a new black country in Cuba.
The 1892 novel Iola Leroy by Frances Harper (1825–1911), the leading black woman poet of the 19th century, has been described as the first piece of African-American utopian fiction on account of its vision of a peaceful and equal polity of men and women, whites and former slaves.
In contrast, the 1899 novel Imperium in Imperio by Sutton Griggs (1872–1933) ends with preparations for a violent takeover of Texas for African Americans by a secret black government.
[1] Of One Blood (1902) by the prolific writer and editor Pauline Hopkins (1859–1930), describing the discovery of a hidden civilization with advanced technology in Ethiopia, is the first "lost race" novel by an African-American author.
Du Bois's 1920 story The Comet, in which only a black man and a white woman survive an apocalyptic event, is the first work of post-apocalyptic fiction in which African Americans appear as subjects.
In South Africa, the popular 1920 novel Chaka, written in Sotho by Thomas Mofolo (1876–1948) presented a magical realist account of the life of the Zulu king Shaka.
Nnanga Kôn, a 1932 novel by Jean-Louis Njemba Medou, covers the disastrous first contact of white colonialists with the Bulu people.
1934 saw the publication of two Nigerian novels describing the deeds of rulers in a mythic version of the country's past, Gandoki by Muhammadu Bello Kagara (1890–1971) and Ruwan Bagaja by Abubakar Imam.
The story Yayne Abäba in the 1945 collection Arremuňň by Mäkonnen Endalkaččäw, an Ethiopian writer writing in Amharic, is notable as an early work of Muslim science fiction, describing the adventures of a teenage Amhara girl sold into slavery.
[6] Writers such as Samuel R. Delany, Octavia E. Butler, Steven Barnes, Nalo Hopkinson, Minister Faust, Nnedi Okorafor, Ken Sibanda, N. K. Jemisin, Tananarive Due, Andrea Hairston, Geoffrey Thorne, Nisi Shawl, Eugen Bacon, Sheree Renée Thomas, Suyi Davies Okungbowa, Wole Talabi, Oghenechovye Ekpeki Donald, Milton Davis, M'Shai S. Dash,[17] and Carl Hancock Rux are among the writers who continue to work in black science fiction and speculative fiction.
[11]Misha Green is an African American screenwriter, director, and producer best known as the showrunner for the science fiction/horror series Lovecraft Country on HBO.
The information age created an opportunity for the emergence of Black science fiction based organizations and media outlets.
Specifically with Black science fiction as a genre, it fits the mold of the post-soul as it takes different experiences of the diaspora to produce something new and "science fiction operates through the power of falsification, the drive to rewrite reality, and the will to deny plausibility, while the scenario operates through the control and prediction of plausible alternative tomorrows".
The workings of science function can serve as metaphors for the fundamental experience of post-slavery Black people in the twentieth century.
Nalo Hopkinson is a renowned science fiction and fantasy writer, professor, and editor whose short stories explore class, race, and sexuality using themes from Afro-Caribbean culture, Caribbean Folklore, and feminism.
Writers of Africanfuturism include Nnedi Okorafor, Tochi Onyebuchi, Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki, Tade Thompson, Namwali Serpell, Sofia Samatar, Wole Talabi, Suyi Davies Okungbowa.
