Binti: Home (2017)
Author: Nnedi Okorafor
Genre: science fiction
Pages: 168 (kindle)
Series: Binti Trilogy
Publisher: Tor
Why I chose it: I first read Binti back in February, when I searched specifically for fantasy and science fiction written by authors of color. I was blown away by how awesome Binti was, especially as I listened to the audiobook and the reader’s accent for Binti really helped immerse me in the story. If you get a chance and have the ability, I definitely recommend you experience these books in audiobook format. I wanted to see where the story went after that, so I picked up Binti: Home.
Premise:
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?
This review is spoiler free, but does assume you’ve read Binti.
Discussion: The action in Binti: Home immediately follows the first installment in Nnedi Okorafor’s trilogy about a young woman who leaves her tribe on Earth to attend a prestigious space university. In this book, a girl forever altered by her journeys through the stars must come home and reconcile those differences with the place she left behind.
I’m unclean because I left home, I thought. If I go home and complete my pilgrimage, I will be cleansed. The Seven will forgive me and I’ll be free of this toxic anger. (Page 20)
Binti and Okwu, the Meduse alien she brokered peace with in the first novel, are both still dealing with the trauma of the first book in various ways. Or, in some very real and heartbreaking ways, not dealing with the trauma. Binti suffers from panic attacks and the haunted memories of the attack. Okwu has anger management issues and is forced to deal with consequences of his race’s previous actions and the prejudice and fear of their classmates and Binti’s tribe.
Back on Earth, Binti finds her family largely unchanged, though she herself is forever altered, both figuratively and literally, by her encounters with the Meduse. How strange it must have been to come home from Oomza Uni and find her family still holding the same prejudices about other humans, the same fear of aliens that Binti has largely grown comfortable around, especially the alien that helped murder an entire shipful of her classmates. Binti is the oddball in her tribe, the master harmonizer who left them behind to pursue her dreams of university and the future that could be opened for her there.
“Everything is . . . happy,” it had said, sounding perplexed about this state.
“Good,” I said, grinning. “That way, you won’t be so grumpy when you meet everyone. Khoush like politeness and the Himba expect a sunny disposition.”
“I will wash this off soon,” it said. “It’s not good to feel this pleased with life.” (Page 50)
This book has been nominated for a Hugo, and part of this discussion must be dedicated to the worthiness of it potentially winning. Should it? I think yes, though I admit to not having read the rest of the category. This is a beautiful, ambitious novel about a girl forever changed by the things she’s gone through, coming home to find the way she’ll never fit in with the family that loves and tries to support but doesn’t ultimately understand her.
The world building is phenomenal, but more important to me here are the interpersonal relationships, the way that these sci fi elements have changed and affected who Binti is as a human.
Will it win? It’s worth noting that Binti won in the same category last year. So I can’t really say, but I like its chances.
In conclusion: Binti: Home is a truly beautiful story about change, prejudice, trauma, and recovery. It’s a perfect continuation of the previous story. Where in that story, Binti found herself fighting for her life in space and her space in the present, in this one she delves into her past, her own family history and the secrets hidden there.
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