Book reviews: Curandera, by Irenosen Okojie and The Principle of Moments, by Esmie Jikiemi-Pearson

There are numerous ironies around the cultural phenomenon known as Afrofuturism. Firstly, it was coined by a white critic, Mark Dery; more significantly, one of the figures he interviewed, Samuel R Delaney, rejected the idea, writing in The Mirror of Afrofuturism that it “is pretty much anything you want it to be and not a rigorous category at all”.

There are numerous ironies around the cultural phenomenon known as Afrofuturism. Firstly, it was coined by a white critic, Mark Dery; more significantly, one of the figures he interviewed, Samuel R Delaney, rejected the idea, writing in The Mirror of Afrofuturism that it “is pretty much anything you want it to be and not a rigorous category at all”. This is borne out in its indiscriminate coagulating of genres. Is it of any value to apply the same label to the supernatural narrative of Helen Oyeyemi’s White is for Witching, the hard sci-fi of Nnedi Okorafor’s Lagoon and the urban fantasy of NK Jemisin’s The City We Became, even before thinking about how George Clinton, Janelle Monáe, Robert Pruitt or Jean-Michel Basquiat fit in the schema?

These two novels demonstrate diametrically opposed ways the author might approach the Afrofuturist – I am using the term since Okojie is the director of the Black to the Future festival and Jikiemi-Pearson gives a thumbnail manifesto describing her work as being “about Black people dismantling space empires”. Okojie tends towards the idea of creating new mythologies and Jikiemi-Pearson towards the adoption and inversion of pre-existing tropes; the former is more on the fantastical end of the spectrum and the latter on the space-operatic.

Curandera (Spanish, a folk medicine woman) involves a quartet of characters in the present day – Therese, a botanist and healer interested in peyote, a musician from Haiti called Azacca whose heart has been stolen by an entity, the accident prone drifter Emilien from Peru and Finn, who feels a wound moving within him. Their narratives are linked with Zulmira, a woman whose arrival in the portentously named Gethsemane on Cape Verde is accompanied by fractures in the natural order.

Irenosen Okojie

Given the novel is influenced by shamanism, it seem apposite that the style is chimeric and delirious: at times it reminded me of the work of the Symbolist painter Gustave Moreau. The extent to which one finds this headiness euphoric or queasy is matter of taste. It is curious that Okojie namechecks other writers: Finn says of Therese “Uranium on Mars, you’re like something out of an Octavia Butler novel”. What is the reader intended to take from this reference? Which Butler novel? The Xenogenesis novels, or the Parable series?

Likewise, Therese sees “a rare copy of an Amos Tutuola novel”, “one of her favourite books” which, omen-like, resembles “an incandescent wing waiting for the stroke from a stained glass hand”. It might seem pedantic, but which, if it’s significant? The Yoruba Folktales or the more Modernist My Life in the Bush of Ghosts? The novel’s seemingly disparate elements do cohere, and there are plot lines to tether the reader in the ever-twisting kaleidoscope (who is leaving the origami birds? Why do those healed die thereafter minus a lymph gland?) but it runs the risk of straying into esoteric exoticism. The shaman god promises to “extend the possibilities of our wildest imaginings, bridging the intersections of science and spirituality”, yet the science is fleeting and the spirituality rather second-hand psychedelia.

Esmie Jikiemi-Pearson’s The Principle of Moments is indubitably enthusiastic and full-throated. Asha is indentured labourer on a distant world, part of a military-industrial complex, and has been secretly educating herself. Obi is a time-traveller in alternate history Regency London. Their paths cross. Regrettably, some of this is more fan-fiction that fiction: Asha is on a double-sunned desert planet under the thrall of an Emperor who has a planet-destroying weapon and is a surprisingly good pilot.

Jikiemi-Pearson wrote the novelisation of Ncuti Gatwa’s first Doctor Who episode, The Church on Ruby Road, and Obi seems cast from the same mould (in dialogue especially). There are plenty of other homages, from a many-armed cook (Elzar in Futurama or Dexter Jettster in Attack of the Clones) to a child hard-wired into a computer (The Controller in Doctor Who’s “Bad Wolf”, the Telepaths in the Shadow Vessels in Babylon 5). One neat part is that each time-jump makes Obi lose a part of himself, but even that reminded me of Prosser’s Jigsaw Disease in Judge Dredd; Iain Banks died before doing his novel with bullets that delete a memory each time). There is, admittedly, nothing new under the sun, and everyone has the right to play with the toys in the box. A slightly more acute problem lies in the hastiness. For example, on page 415 one character reminds Asha that her plan will involve casualties.

Esmie Jikiemi-Pearson

“Oh, please… You don’t think they knew there was a possibility they might die when they signed up to fight for the Emperor?” Seven pages later, Asha is shocked at a corpse and is “sick with horror”. This lasts for three words until she remembers her own words, and that the fault was the Emperor’s who conscripted them (yet beforehand they were volunteers?) This has the callous certitude of youth. In fairness, the author does thank “my 16-year-old self” in the acknowledgments. “Look at what we made, incredible girl. You did it!” I hope this is ironic, otherwise it’s cringe-makingly gauche. The idea we can all reach for the stars is admirable. To actually get there requires hard work, training and perseverance.

Curandera, by Irenosen Okojie, Dialogue Books, £20. Irenosen Okojie is at the Edinburgh International Book Festival on 10, 11 and 12 August

The Principle of Moments, by Esmie Jikiemi-Pearson, Gollancz, £18.99. Esmie Jikiemi-Pearson is at the Edinburgh International Book Festival on 10 August