Literary Afrofuturism in the Twenty-First Century - Paperback

by Isiah Lavender III (Editor)

In Literary Afrofuturism in the Twenty-First Century, 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.

Author Biography

Isiah Lavender III is the Sterling-Goodman Professor of English at the University of Georgia. He is the author of Afrofuturism Rising: The Literary Prehistory of a Movement (OSU Press, 2019).
Lisa Yaszek is Regents Professor of Science Fiction Studies at Georgia Tech. She is the author of Galactic Suburbia: Recovering Women's Science Fiction (OSU Press, 2007).