Female Power, Transformation and Re-imagined Futures in Nnedi Okorafor’s Lagoon

• In Event: Women's Environmental activism

Description for Program

This paper illustrates the ways in which the Afro-futurist vision of Nnedi Okorafor’s Lagoon (2016) (re) imagines women’s connection to water, fluidity and mobility as an alternative site for feminist empowerment, transformation and re-envisioning a new Nigeria. Through a gendered lens, Okorafor interrogates the life-giving, mobile and spiritual elements of water to invoke the feminine principle as a subtext of the novel.
Lagoon skillfully moves beyond realism to weave an allegorical and futuristic epic infused with elements of indigenous African cosmology, alien technology and oceanic vistas. Lagoon venerates the female principle through the ascendance of a water goddess figure and a marine biologist to echo the central theme of transformation of the nation, environment and people of Nigeria. The image of strong forceful, women with supernatural powers illustrates the women’s connection to water, and mobility as an overarching motif in the work.
Okafor creates a panoramic vista of the ocean as a site of energy, renewal and cleansing that connects to African indigenous cosmologies. The life-giving essence of water to heal, renew and cleanse is intrinsic to Africa’s diverse cultures and spiritual traditions and indeed, water is always infused with spirituality. Water is an important and recurring symbol throughout Lagoon, as expressed in the phrase” Aman Iman, meaning ‘water is life”. Lagos is the setting for the fantastical rendering of the metropolis to foreground an imagined future for Nigeria. The watery motif and imagery of Lagoon supports Melody Jue‘s descriptions of the aquatic setting to assert that: “Lagoon’s ocean is not simply a space of alterity, but also an ancient and familiar element of Nigeria’s and other African traditional cosmologies” (Jue, 2017: 172) .

Author

• Rose Sackeyfio, Winston Salem State University