Nnedi Okorafor has announced that her genre-bending novel Death of the Author has made the shortlist for the 2026 Goldsboro Books Glass Bell Award. Sharing the news on her social media platforms, Okorafor wrote that the book was “flying in different skies,” adding, with evident pride, that “it has the wings for it.”

Now in its tenth year, the Glass Bell Award celebrates outstanding storytelling across contemporary fiction, honoring novels that combine brilliant characterisation, a distinctive voice, and stories that truly connect with readers, and stands apart in the UK literary landscape for being open to all genres, from literary fiction and crime to fantasy, horror, and speculative fiction. Okorafor is up against five other authors on this year’s shortlist: Florence Knapp, Taylor Jenkins Reid, Beth Lewis, Virginia Evans, and Patrick Ryan. The eventual winner will take home £2,000 in prize money along with a handmade, engraved glass bell, with the decision made entirely in-house by the Goldsboro Books team.

The nomination adds to a run that has already made Death of the Author one of Okorafor’s most decorated books. The novel follows Zelu, a disabled Nigerian American writer who, after being fired and rejected by yet another publisher, channels her frustration into Rusted Robots, a science-fiction novel about warring AI factions on a post-apocalyptic Earth, a book-within-a-book that unexpectedly transforms her life and career. Since its January 2025 release via William Morrow, the novel has been named a TIME Magazine 100 Must-Read Book of 2025, won the NAACP Image Award, and continued Okorafor’s long streak of genre-defining recognition — a career that already includes the World Fantasy, Nebula, Eisner, and multiple Hugo and Lodestar Awards.

The book has also found an audience far beyond the awards circuit. It became the centerpiece of the 2025–2026 Great World Texts in Wisconsin program, a statewide initiative that brought high school teachers and students across the state into sustained engagement with Okorafor’s work, reaching schools scattered from the Milwaukee metro to the state’s northern reaches, places that don’t typically come up in conversations about African literature or African science fiction in the US. The program culminated in a full-day student conference at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where students presented projects built around the novel and met Okorafor in person. Brittle Paper’s own Ainehi Edoro moderated the accompanying public conversation with Okorafor at Madison Central Public Library.

The Glass Bell winner will be announced on October 1. Until then, we’re rooting for Nnedi.