Upon reflection, it seems silly to assume an entire genre to be devoid of Black voices, but she assures me that many of us have had to unlearn the notion. Our conversation flows easily, our common understanding a subtext as I interview her.Ī little embarrassed, I tell her that it had never occurred to me that fantasy novels by and featuring Black people were a thing until I had read her debut novel, Daughters of Nri. Reni cites Octavia Butler and we agree that their novels are beautiful and necessary but also leave us broken as we (re)live all too familiar colonial and racialised hardships. Soon, though, my passion for fantasy literature dried up, and I traded them in for novels by Black female writers of the likes of Chimamanda Adichie and Tsitsi Dangaremba. They were I have distinct memories of Team Jacob vs Team Edward debates and I was proudly on the former. She mentions Twilight, reminiscing about the days that the Meyer novels were all the hype, and, encouraged by my vigorous nod of ‘Black-girl-bookworm’ solidarity, she adds, “it was one of those series that was just so impactful”. Reni K Amayo grew up on all genres of books, but she had a certain penchant towards fantasy novels.
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