Two Nnedi Okorafor Books Are Finalists for the Hugo Awards and the Associated Awards

April 14, 2018

Two books by Nnedi Okorafor are finalists for the 2018 Hugo Awards and the Associated Awards: Binti: Home for Best Novella at the Hugo Awards, and Akata Witch for World Science Fiction Society (WSFS) Award for Best Young Adult Book at the Associated Awards. Nnedi Okorafor is a previous winner of the Hugo Award for Best Novella, in 2016, for Binti, the first book in her Binti Trilogy, making her the first Nigerian winner of the Award.

Founded in 1953 and presented by the World Science Fiction Society (WSFS), the Hugo Awards are a set of literary awards given annually for the best science fiction or fantasy works and achievements of the previous year. The Associated Awards, according to Tor.com, are “not Hugos,” but they are given by the same body.

For Best Novella at the Hugo Awards, Binti: Home is up against: All Systems Red, by Martha Wells; And Then There Were (N-One), by Sarah Pinsker; The Black Tides of Heaven, by JY Yang; Down Among the Sticks and Bones, by Seanan McGuire; and River of Teeth, by Sarah Gailey. Here is a description of Binti: Home by its publishers, Tor.com Publishing:

The thrilling sequel to the Hugo and Nebula-winning Binti by Nnedi Okorafor

It’s been a year since Binti and Okwu enrolled at Oomza University. A year since Binti was declared a hero for uniting two warring planets. A year since she found friendship in the unlikeliest of places.

And now she must return home to her people, with her friend Okwu by her side, to face her family and face her elders.

But Okwu will be the first of his race to set foot on Earth in over a hundred years, and the first ever to come in peace.

After generations of conflict can human and Meduse ever learn to truly live in harmony?

For the World Science Fiction Society (WSFS) Award for Best Young Adult Book, Akata Warrior is up against: The Art of Starving, by Sam J. Miller; The Book of Dust: La Belle Sauvage, by Philip Pullman; In Other Lands, by Sarah Rees Brennan; A Skinful of Shadows, by Frances Hardinge; and Summer in Orcus, written by T. Kingfisher, illustrated by Lauren Henderson. Published by Viking, here is a description of Akata Warrior on Amazon: