Who Fears Death

paperback, 400 pages

Published June 7, 2011 by DAW.

ISBN:
978-0-7564-0669-1
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4 stars (2 reviews)

Born into post-apocalyptic Africa to a mother who was raped after the slaughter of her entire tribe, Onyesonwu is tutored by a shaman and discovers that her magical destiny is to end the genocide of her people.

5 editions

powerful and important

5 stars

I finished this some time ago, but I still can't really do it justice in a review. Some of the themes and world-building (and even one of the characters!) is shared with the later novel Noor, but this novel is somehow more elemental. For me the two most powerful themes were the codification of hatred as religion and how sex and reproductive biology inform politics (in the small).

Content warnings: pervasive misogyny, sexual violence, and racism play important roles in the plot.

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2 stars