How to Dream the World You Want: Nnedi Okorafor and Jeff VanderMeer on Resistance and Transformation

Forget the new normal. What we need right now is literature that turns the whole concept of “normal” on its head, building worlds that put the status quo in the rearview mirror. Fantasy and sci-fi, once relegated to “niche” status in the book world, have become leading and widely-read literary genres that meet the historic moment we’re in, centering diversity and disrupting complacency in ways no other form can do. If you haven’t read much in this genre, there’s never been a better time to discover it.

At the helm of this brave new era is novelist and Marvel Comics scribe Nnedi Okorafor, whose groundbreaking Africanfuturism—including her latest novel, Remote Control—demands big-screen renderings (fittingly, two of her books are currently being adapted as series by HBO and Hulu). Nebula Award winner Jeff VanderMeer (Hummingbird Salamander), author of the bestselling Southern Reach trilogy that was adapted into the film Annihilation, also is no stranger to meeting (and even anticipating) the moment: Esquire called him “the prophet of climate fiction.” In this “Writer to Writer” conversation, you’ll meet two literary pioneers we need now: subversive, audaciously imaginative, and unafraid to steer us into uncharted territory.