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| (Cover Artist: Dan Funderburgh) |
Occasionally, I'll read a book whose ending completely alters the nature of the story that preceded it, and which requires that I fundamentally rethink my opinion of how that story functions.
In almost every single respect this is usually a good thing, since it inevitably means that I have a ton to think about when it comes to discussing that novel. However it also means that trying to produce a review of such a work feels very nearly impossible, since discussing what I honestly feel is the most important aspect of that story risks destroying the effect it will likely have for future readers. I can't discuss the book without talking about its ending, but I also can't discuss the ending without spoiling the entire point of the book.
Obviously, Nnedi Okorafor's 2025 novel Death of the Author is this type of work. Much of this story is divided between two parallel narratives, both of which at first appear to be seeking to accomplish contradictory goals. It's only in the book's final chapter--literally just a dozen paragraphs away from the final line--that Okorafor reveals a critical bit of information about either of these stories that redefines the importance of everything that has come before them.
In short, Death of the Author is an amazing book, but it's also a book which is so multifaceted that I'm struggling to find a way to talk about what it ultimately accomplishes without spoiling that effect for future readers. I can very easily talk about how Okorafor establishes this book's themes, who its characters are, and what I feel is signified by how the stories of these characters interact. However there's one extraordinarily critical element of Death of the Author's core premise that is only revealed at the very end, and which I don't feel I can discuss without betraying this book's ultimate function.
Which is to say that I'll do my best in this review to write around this story element. However I also feel the need to state up front that there is an extraordinarily significant aspect of this book's plot that I am going to very deliberately avoid revealing in this review. Almost nothing in Death of the Author is as it first seems, but the joy of reading this novel comes from the way that Okorafor conceals the true nature of this story until the very end. That's an experience that I am going to do my best in this review to preserve.
Plot Summary of Death of the Author
Death of the Author is told primarily via two interwoven narratives. In one of these stories, a disabled Nigerian-American woman in her late 30s named Zelu struggles to gain independence and self-sufficiency in the face of the subtly passive-aggressive acts of charity levied upon her by her parents and siblings.
Having been paralyzed after falling from a tree in her early childhood, Zelu is as the book opens working as an underpaid creative writing teacher at a local community college in Chicago. In this context, Zelu experiences two catastrophic career setbacks at almost the exact same moment. First, she receives a call from the Dean's office of the college in which she works. Having recently been placed under investigation after she verbally attacked the work of a white student whom she regarded as overly entitled and pretentious, Zelu is told that she has been summarily fired from the teaching position which had previously granted her a small semblance of financial freedom.
Second, shortly after Zelu learns of this setback, she also receives an email from the literary agent with whom she has recently been in contact, and learns that the dense and meandering novel she has spent the past ten or so years writing has been rejected by every single one of the publishers to whom it was marketed. As a result, Zelu realizes that it's unlikely this story will ever see commercial release, with the past ten years that Zelu has spent writing this book culminating in what Zelu herself immediately regards as a total waste of her time.
Faced with a complete loss of her hopes for financial independence at precisely the moment at which one of her younger siblings is effectively celebrating the start of her life as an adult, Zelu responds to her feelings of anger, despair, and rejection by retreating to her hotel room, and while there begins work on a science fiction story titled "Rusted Robots."
Upon completing this novel in only a matter of months, Zelu hesitantly submits a draft of her new work to the same literary agent who had previously been unable to market her earlier novel. Unexpectedly, this new novel results in Zelu being inundated with a torrent of bewilderingly lucrative publishing deals. Practically within the space of a single week, Zelu finds herself faced with the daunting task of managing a newfound fame and commercial success. In time, Rusted Robots garners a devoted fan base desperate for a potential sequel, as well as a major Hollywood studio eager to produce a film adaptation of Zelu's work.
Most important of all however is the fact that, as Zelu's fame grows, she finds herself drawn to the attention of a controversial tech billionaire named Hugo Wagner. Hugo has been working to design a collection of advanced mechanical prosthetic limbs which could potentially allow Zelu to regain some semblance of the physical mobility she has lacked since childhood. These devices are so prohibitively expensive that Hugo has been unable to obtain any formal authorization to sell this technology commercially. His hope is that working with Zelu will generate positive coverage for his emerging company, with Zelu being granted access to this untested assistive technology on the condition that she work as a kind of unofficial spokesperson advertising his business.
It's in this way that Zelu's art begins to function as a catalyst for her own personal liberation. While revenue that Zelu earns from the sale of Rusted Robots allows her to finally afford a home of her own, Hugo's experimental prosthetic limbs (called exos) likewise grant Zelu a freedom of movement she has lacked for the entirety of her adult life. Moreover, all of these changes are brought about, in effect, by the imaginary science-fictional world that Zelu has created--a world which is itself born of the deeply personal feelings of joy and rejection that have defined Zelu's existence.
Plot Summary of Rusted Robots
The second story existing within Death of the Author is, ostensibly, the novel which Zelu has written. Told in chapters which alternate with the story of Zelu's growing fame, this new story is set many years after an unnamed disaster has resulted in the functional extinction of the human race. Within this world, the many automated intelligences created by humanity continue to roam the Earth--carrying out the preprogrammed tasks prescribed upon them by their creators even after these creators have vanished. Following a single human-like robot (or "Hume") called Ankara, Rusted Robots begins as its protagonist is wandering the desolate but also ecologically vibrant world which humanity has left. Compelled by her programming to act as a kind of traveling scholar and historian, Ankara's life now consists of the endless (and perhaps in some sense fruitless) task of exploring the ruins of human civilization in search of artifacts of art and culture.
As Ankara reveals to the reader very early on, as a Hume, she is forever incapable of producing a work of true creativity and artistic value, and therefore can only stand in awe of the creative works produced by the long-dead human artists whom she was programmed to study.
It's in this context that Ankara encounters a mysterious spider-like robot called Udide. After summoning Ankara to a cave in which they reside, Udide informs her of an impending catastrophe that threatens the continued existence of the Earth itself. Recently, a fleet of artificially intelligent space probes launched by humanity many centuries prior uncovered a method of traveling into the very center of the sun. While there, these entities (whom Udide subsequently calls "Trippers") witnessed a form of natural beauty transcending all capacity for communication. Unfortunately this experience so twisted the minds of these artificial beings that they have begun working to bring the beauty of the sun's internal light to the Earth's surface--an act which will surely destroy the entire planet. Unless the many terrestrial factions of automated life that still reside on the Earth can band together and form a unified resistance against this threat, the Trippers will reach the Earth in a little over one year, with every living creature subsequently doomed to be obliterated in a fiery death.
Entrusted with what she later refers to only as "Udide's Terrible Information," Ankara immediately sets out to spread word of the Trippers' impending attack. Yet in the process she becomes embroiled in a fraught battle being carried out between Humes like herself, and a faction of digital intelligences residing within humanity's decaying computer networks who call themselves "NoBodies."
While Humes like Ankara are programmed to seek out works of art and narrative so that they can spend an eternity working as the automated scholars and historians for which humanity originally designed them, the NoBodies believe that it is only by erasing all evidence of human culture from existence that automated life can truly abandon its programming and fulfill its destiny. Due to this innate philosophical disagreement, the NoBodies have begun working to violently eradicate the Humes from existence, with the Humes in turn soon setting themselves towards the parallel goal of destroying the NoBodies in a similar manner.
All the while, as this war intensifies, the impending catastrophe embodied by the approaching Trippers grows ever closer, with Ankara watching in horror as both sides in the Hume-NoBody conflict fall prey to personal bigotries and grudges in a manner that proves, ironically, depressingly human.
Main Review
When I wrote at the start of this review that both halves of Death of the Author appear to function in subtly contradictory ways, it's because Zelu's and Ankara's stories, despite existing in parallel to one another, also feature characters who are arguably striving to accomplish opposite goals. Zelu's story details the struggles of an artist as she navigates the pitfalls of her unexpected fame, while also seeking to retain control over the art that has made her famous. Ankara's story meanwhile tells the inverted narrative of an artificially intelligent being who is convinced that there is a meaning in her existence that exists independent of the intentions of her creators.
One of the earliest examples of the contrasting nature of these two stories appears in the scenes which open the book itself. As Zelu is introduced, she appears in the aforementioned wedding of one of her siblings, with it being in this moment that she experiences the two catastrophic personal and professional setbacks that serve as her story's inciting incident. Not only does Zelu learn here that the literary novel she has been working on for over ten years will never be published, but also in the same moment that she has lost the one low-paid teaching job that provided her some semblance of financial stability.
It's in this context that Zelu retreats to her hotel room, and begins work on a piece of fiction which is by her own admission unlike anything she has ever before created. While Zelu indicates to the reader that her earlier work sought to draw upon the literary theories and structures which her job as a creative writing teacher required she study, its as she loses all hope of a future writing career that she instead chooses to abandon these rigid structures and theories.
Critically here is the way in which Zelu's sudden feelings of despair are shown by Okorafor to fuel a desire for escape, with it being this desire, more than anything else, which is highlighted as giving Zelu's art a reality all its own.
Her face was crusty and itchy with dried tears, her mouth cottony from the weed she'd smoked and sour with the aftertaste of rejection, her mind cracked so wide open that all her demons had flown in. Zelu began writing.
This time, it was different. She didn't want to write about normal people having normal problems, just to be told all over again that her characters weren't relatable. She didn't want to research a world for years just to watch it burn. So she didn't. She wrote about those who weren't human. She wrote a world that she'd like to play in when things got to be too much, but which didn't exist yet. She wrote something else, something new.
She wrote about rusted robots. (p.27)
It's in this context that the other story of Death of the Author begins, with the novel Zelu writes subtly contrasting with its counterpart in a way that can at first be easy to miss. While Zelu's story opens as she takes her own experiences of rejection and despair, and transmutes these experiences into a form of personal escape, the narrative Zelu finds escape within begins as Ankara explains to the reader how, despite the obvious fact that human civilization has died off, she is nevertheless still confident that there is a future not only for herself, but the Earth too.
In first-person narration that almost seems to represent Ankara speaking directly to Zelu, the text which Zelu herself is actively writing as she sits alone in her hotel room reads:
The Earth had already seen so much. Histories. Rises. Falls. Remembrances. Plants, dirt, trees, genetic modification, splices. Vibrant colors, natural fabrics. Oil and plastic. Consumption, battles, burning, smoke, exhaust. Flowers blooming, then wilting.
As I stood in the crumbling parking lot, the hot concrete warming the metal of my feet, I was sure of it: the Earth had great things ahead of it, even still. (p.28)
The contrasts between these two moments sets up a question which persists throughout Death of the Author. Is Ankara merely a reflection of Zelu's experiences--a tool which Zelu is creating so as to better process her feelings of despair and rejection? Alternately, given how Ankara's outlook on her own existence differs so sharply from Zelu's, is the story of Ankara's life something external to the author who created her, with Ankara representing an entity with an existence all its own?
In effect, is Ankara a fully intelligent sentient being, or is she nothing more than a robot?
These questions persist as the plot of Zelu's novel continues--a story which, as the book develops, details how Ankara learns of the threat represented by the Trippers, and then in turn must work to navigate a war that ultimately hinges on how automated life should pursue its future. Should the robotic creations of humanity spend eternity documenting the decaying accomplishments of human culture and history (as the Humes seem to believe), or should these artificial beings violently sever their connection to the past so as to fully embrace a future which their original creators could never conceive of (as is the conviction of the NoBodies)?
Alternately, could it perhaps be the case that the nihilistic philosophy of destruction embodied by the Trippers is the only true solution to the crisis of purpose and meaning which automated life now faces in the wake of the death of human civilization? Is it the case that the singular objective which humanity's creations must turn themselves towards now that their creators are dead is the obliteration of intelligence itself?
In a similar way, while Ankara faces the daunting task of convincing the other factions of automated life that there is a meaning and purpose in their existence that is facilitated by humanity's legacy, but also not constrained by it, Zelu is faced with the opposite task of finding a way to relate to her art's growing influence as this art threatens to escape from her control.
There's one scene in particular which I think both highlights and foreshadows the fascinating ways that Okorafor dramatizes Zelu's conflicted link to her art. Shortly after Zelu has successfully sold Rusted Robots to a publisher, she decides to use part of the advanced payment she has received for her novel to test out a newly developed subscription service on her phone. Via this service, Zelu is able to order a fully autonomous self-driving car to come to her house and take her on various errands. The result is that, for the first time in her life Zelu is confronted with the experience of being utterly alone in a vehicle that is operating under her control. Consequently, she is immediately overwhelmed with feelings of fear and fascination at this technology, with the self-driving car very clearly being an entity whose existence is separate from Zelu, even as its actions are constrained by her will.
"This is so weird," she muttered as she watched the steering wheel moving on its own. It was the first time she'd ever been in a moving vehicle by herself. Nobody was there, but she couldn't shake the feeling that there was a presence; something was in control. It was like being driven by a ghost. "Or should I say a NoBody," she said to herself, laughing.
When the vehicle stopped to turn onto the main road, her mirth vanished. (p.56)
Critically here is the way that Zelu initially chooses to conceptualize the self-driving car--relating this machine to one of her fictional creations (a NoBody). Yet while this reflection is one that Zelu at first regards with a degree of apprehension (immediately recognizing that this entity is in some ways separate from herself, and then subsequently becoming terrified that this car is going to malfunction and crash), it's after this vehicle has arrived at the destination Zelu originally commanded that her suspicion of this machine gives way to a sort of joy.
Despite not having been in direct control of the vehicle as it hurtled down the freeway (weaving between traffic while swerving dangerously to avoid harmless plastic bags that happen to blow into its path), Zelu decides in this final moment that the self-driving car is a device just as useful to her as the wheelchair which she uses to move around. In the process, she begins thinking of this entity not as an automated creation with its own will, but instead an extension of her body. Moreover, much as with Zelu's earlier observation that the SUV is like a NoBody from her novel, Zelu's new conviction that the self-driving car actually is an extension of her will comes with an additional parallel between this technology and the book she has just written.
She watched the SUV leave, her heart rate slowing, a sense of normalcy returning to her. And then that relief became euphoria. She could call this cab anytime she needed. She could move herself around without any human's aid. This SUV would help her--no, it could be like an extension of her. She could be like a robot with built-in wheels ready to carry her whenever she wanted.
She turned and wheeled up the boardwalk. She smiled to herself, feeling a warmth that emanated from within. "Yeah," she said. "Just like a robot." (p.58)
The implication here is that, just as how Zelu views the self-driving car as merely an extension of her own body--a tool that, much like her wheelchair, exists to facilitate her own personal agency and freedom--so too is Rusted Robots a kind of prosthesis via which Zelu imagines herself enacting her will upon the world. To the extent that Rusted Robots exists as something separate from Zelu, she views it as existing only in the way that she declares it to have existed.
This metaphor of art as being valuable only in so far as it expresses its author's will--a tool whose utility is dictated by the extent to which it communicates the intentions of its user--is further explored as Zelu's fame grows, and she comes to the attention of Hugo Wagner. Desiring to employ Zelu as a test case for his newly invented exos, Hugo reaches out to Zelu immediately after reading her newly published novel, and expresses an interest in working with her in part due to the way that he feels her book showcases the very same robotic technology he has spent his life researching. Hugo's exos represent an element of Zelu's story which has been made real, with Zelu's novel and accompanying fame facilitating the creation of a robotic technology that otherwise wouldn't exist. Moreover, much as with the self-driving SUV, this is a technology which is presented to Zelu as existing entirely for the purpose of facilitating her personal freedom.
Yet while Hugo's exos are indeed eventually shown to function in the way that he promises (after extensive training with these devices, Zelu gains the ability to walk unassisted) the nature of this technology also means that the freedom it affords her is just as ambiguous as the freedom facilitated by the self-driving car.
Not only is it the case that the exos do not actually act out Zelu's direct intensions in the manner of a traditional prosthesis (these robotic limbs instead merely interpret subconscious muscle movements in Zelu's lower torso, and then maneuver her paralyzed legs through a series of pre-programmed motions in response to what an advanced machine-learning algorithm thinks are her intended actions), but even Hugo's interest in working with Zelu is continually highlighted by Okorafor as potentially suspect. Is Hugo simply a well-meaning businessman who was inspired by Rusted Robots, and therefore eager to utilize the resources at his disposal to further Zelu's goals? Alternately, is he an opportunistic scammer eager to capitalize on the favorable coverage his for-profit company will receive should he "cure" a famous author of her disability?
Or, to put it in much starker terms, are Hugo's exos tools which Zelu can use to further her own personal freedom, or is it Zelu herself who has unknowingly become a tool that Hugo is exploiting to achieve his ends?
Wisely, Okorafor treats these questions surrounding creativity, bodily autonomy, and personal agency with the care that these subjects require, and eventually uses them as a launching point for a broader discussion of the social issues surrounding disability rights. When Zelu's parents initially express concern regarding their daughter's decision to work with Hugo, what starts out as a series of entirely valid critiques of the commercial motives underlying Hugo's actions quickly reveal a much more fraught dynamic existing within Zelu's family itself.
While the concerns which Zelu's parents raise regarding Hugo's reasons for working with their daughter may be valid, they are also shown to nevertheless be predicated on the deeply problematic assumption that due to Zelu's disability, she is forever unworthy of the personal agency and freedom required to make decisions about her body and future.
"How does this man even know about you?" her mother asked.
"Mom, I'm all over the place right now! He read my book and then read about me in interviews. He studied up on me."
Her mother grunted. "Yes, but he could do that with anyone. What's special about you?"
Zelu shrank back, digging her nails into her palms. Her family knew how popular her book was, but still, they couldn't stop seeing her as the child who fell from the tree and needed help just to go to the bathroom. None of them would ever admit it, but Zelu knew that some part of them, all of them, wanted to keep her at home to prevent her from nearly killing herself yet again. (pp.133-134)
These questions surrounding not only Zelu's decision to work with Hugo, but also the consequences of Zelu's belief that the art she has created exists merely as an instrument to express her will, reach their height when Zelu is invited to speak about Rusted Robots on a popular TV talk show.
Here, Zelu faces an unexpectedly grueling interview with a white reporter named Amanda Parker, who in turn attempts to critique Rusted Robots through an autobiographical framework. While Amanda seems to agree with Zelu that an author's intentions in creating their art are what define that art's meaning, as the interview continues she nevertheless twists Zelu's identity and experiences into a shape that best affirms her own personal biases surrounding Zelu's life. In the process, Zelu is forced to watch as the very words which she has previously viewed as an intimate expression of her will and intentions are turned against her.
As Zelu responds to a question Amanda has asked regarding her reasons for choosing to write a science fiction novel about robots, the exchange reads:
She gestured toward her waist. "I'm paraplegic. I've often dreamed about removing broken parts and replacing them with new ones like a robot can do. The connection is hard to miss."
Amanda nodded as if Zelu had just said something incredibly profound. "Very sci-fi indeed. And now you want to make that dream a reality?"
Zelu narrowed her eyes, not quite sure what Amanda was getting at. "If you want to see it that way. To me, it's all a story."
Amanda's flaky face didn't move, but her eyes flickered quickly toward Zelu's waist and the lower part of her dress that covered her exos. "Authorial intent can't be ignored, though. There may be some who interpret this book as you rejecting the identity of a person with disabilities."
Zelu's jaw unhinged. Every hair on her body stood on end. What the fuck? She glanced around the studio to see if anyone else was reacting to this, but all she could see were the hot white lights that stung her eyes. (p.207)
All of this serves to establish a subtle but gradually building tension within Death of the Author. While Zelu views the value of her work as deriving from the extent to which it communicates her experiences onto the larger world, this same view of Zelu as the sole arbiter of Rusted Robots's true meaning can, as the above interview demonstrates, very easily turn toxic.
All of these themes would make Death of the Author a vitally important work in its own right, except for the fact that the story of Zelu's life is only one of this book's two narratives. As Zelu's fame grows, and Zelu herself faces the fraught task of producing a sequel to Rusted Robots which will satisfy her increasingly impatient fans, Ankara's parallel narrative follows a similar but more extreme version of this same conflict.
As the three-way crisis between the Humes, the NoBodies, and the Trippers reaches its climax, Ankara eventually realizes that the only way that she can hope to resolve this dispute is to perform an action which demonstrates to all sides of this struggle the simple truth that she asserted in her story's opening scene--the simple truth which seems to have driven Zelu to write this novel to begin with. This is that, despite the setbacks she and Zelu have experienced, they both have a future that is not defined by their respective pasts.
Much as how Zelu's story has followed the vibrant life of Rusted Robot's author after her book is published--detailing the personal hardships and joys that unfold as a result of Zelu's literary success--Ankara's story similarly follows the life of Zelu's fictional protagonist as she navigates the worsening conflict between the Humes and the NoBodies--a conflict which leads Ankara, much like Zelu, through vital experiences of joy, fear, love, and desperation.
All of this leads to a final storyline wherein Ankara discovers that the only way she can end the war between the Humes and the NoBodies is by finding a reconciliation between these factions.
Which is to say that in the latter chapters of Rusted Robots, Ankara sets out to affirm a sense of meaning and purpose in her own existence by transcending her programming, and creating an original work of art that affirms the value of her life via the way it expresses the life of another.
That is, Ankara sets out to save the world by learning how to write a novel.
Some potential criticisms (which technically aren't)
It's here that I need to again refer back to the initial point I made at the start of this review, because there is an interpretation about how both Death of the Author and Rusted Robots relate to one another which Okorafor initially appears to be pressuring her readers towards over the course of this text. With Ankara's final decision to write a wholly original novel, this interpretation comes to the forefront of the book's plot, yet it does so in a way that initially feels reductive due to how it flattens many of the themes the book has so far explored.
When Zelu initially began writing Rusted Robots, she did so in response to her own feelings of desperation and hopelessness at the loss of her job. Zelu is very deliberately shown by Okorafor to have responded to her own failed career as a teacher and a writer by seeking to produce a work of radically original creativity. In the end, it is these emotions of fear and hopelessness which Zelu utilizes as a kind of personal fuel, transmuting her experiences of rejection into a form of creative escape.
Similarly, as Rusted Robots nears its end, Ankara's parallel story follows it's protagonist as she chooses to embark upon the very same creative act as Zelu--taking her own feelings of despair at the ongoing war with the Trippers, and seeking escape from these emotions in an act of creativity that is framed as a nearly spiritual act of self-liberation. Much as with Zelu, Ankara ultimately manages to resolve the conflict of her own narrative by confronting her personal demons, and creating "something new."
This sets up an undeniable parallel between Ankara's final act of creativity, and the creative escape which Zelu pursued at the beginning of Death of the Author. Just as how Zelu sought escape from her own failures and setbacks via her art (and then in the process managed to create a new life for herself through the sheer power of her imagination), Ankara too ultimately ends her story by doing nothing less than saving the Earth itself by writing a novel.
Yet this parallel also produces a problem. If Ankara's ultimate decision to write her novel is read as merely being an allegory for Zelu's initial decision to write Rusted Robots, then how does this relate to the nature of Rusted Robots's core conflict between the Humes, the NoBodies, and the Trippers?
All sides of this three-way battle have been established to represent opposing articulations of the nature of art. The Humes believe that the meaning of their existence is defined by the purpose they were created to serve--that the intentions of their creators are all that matter. Meanwhile, the NoBodies believe that their continued existence in spite of their creators' deaths, necessitates the obliteration of all traces of human civilization--essentially, the ultimate severing of the art from the artist. Similarly, the Trippers follow an even more extreme and violent ideology, and believe that the existence of natural beauty itself demands the complete obliteration not only of all human culture, but life itself.
When Ankara sets out to transcend her programming by creating an original work of art, she is seeking to demonstrate to all sides of this conflict the extent to which their ideologies are incomplete. The novel Ankara hopes to write is built upon knowledge of the past, and yet it is stated to be a wholly original creation that has never before existed. As a result, it will not only illuminate the failure of the Humes' outlook, but also the limitation of the worldview of the NoBodies. Similarly, because of the originality of this creation, the Trippers too will see that their ideology of complete destruction is misguided, because automated life too is capable of creating works of beauty and subtlety.
Ankara's act of creativity will be meaningful, in effect, because it is simultaneously built atop humanity's past, while not being constrained by it.
Yet none of this works if Ankara's story is seen merely as a creation of Zelu. If, in the end, the value and meaning of Ankara's novel is defined by the extent to which it communicates Zelu's real-world experiences, then no matter what Ankara may claim to the contrary, Death of the Author seems doomed to conclude with a paradox which fundamentally invalidates both of it's two narratives. Should Ankara succeed in writing her novel, and proving to the Humes, Trippers, and NoBodies that they do indeed all have a future worth living, then we as readers will know that this victory on Ankara's part is hollow. In the end, the story which Ankara will have written will merely be a fictional work produced by Zelu as an allegory for her own experiences, not the radically transcendent work of creativity Ankara claims.
Or, to view this problem from an inverted perspective, should Zelu end her own half of the story by affirming her identity as the true arbiter of Rusted Robots's meaning (writing a sequel to her novel that fulfills her artistic vision irrespective of what her fans and critics expect) then won't that personal victory come at the expense of her art? The point of the story Zelu has written has been that Ankara is not constrained by the intentions of her creators, and so what will be signified by an ending in which Zelu (as Ankara's real-life creator) conclusively demonstrates that she and she alone controls Ankara's fate?
To borrow the language of the book's title, is Okorafor going to conclude these two stories by asserting that the author of Rusted Robots died the instant she submitted her work to a publisher? Alternately, is she going to claim that this author's protagonist was never truly alive to begin with?
Concluding Thoughts
I don't think it would be right for me to reveal how exactly these conflicts are reconciled, but I want to be very clear that Okorafor does eventually reconcile them. Moreover, she does so via a moment that fundamentally reframes the nature of this narrative, and upends this book's premise in such a way that allows both halves of this story to fit together in a way that previously seemed impossible. Death of the Author is a book which not only presents its readers with two subtly contradictory stories that are nevertheless inextricably intertwined, but which also ends by unexpectedly revealing how both of these stories actually exist in perfect harmony with one another.
Because, again, there is a very critical aspect of this novel's premise which Okorafor skillfully keeps hidden from her readers until the very end. Moreover, this is an element which is revealed via four simple words that have so far loomed prominently in the background of both Zelu's and Ankara's lives, but which (when suddenly coupled with an additional two) take on a very different meaning and significance.
It's in this way, unexpectedly, that Okorafor manages to take the two deeply conflicted stories that have driven this book, and demonstrate how their validities derive not from the intentions of their authors, but the simple truth that is ultimately shown to have motivated both artists. The point of art, to the extent that it needs one, is not the expression of the creator's personal vision, or even the unveiling of a secret meaning hidden within their work. Instead, the point of art, and perhaps creativity in general, is an inherently radical act which resists systematization: the pursuit of something new.