TEXAS STATE UNIVERSITY
Bestselling author Nnedi Okorafor held a public reading and book signing for an overflow crowd at Texas State University’s Katherine Anne Porter Literary Center during Black History Month.
Okorafor read passages from her 2025 novel “Death of the Author,” answered audience questions and signed books for a long line of fans at the Literary Center, located in Kyle behind the childhood home of Porter.
In introducing the reading, Okorafor said that the novel is the most personal work she has ever written. “Death of the Author” is dedicated to her sister, whose death was “sudden and unexpected.”
NNEDI OKORAFOR
“I started writing the book about three days after she passed,” Okorafor said. “I wanted to write about our family and our Nigerian-American experience.”
Born in the United States to Nigerian Igbo immigrant parents, Okorafor has often drawn from African cultures to depict imaginary worlds and engaging characters.
She said her narrative approach “Death of the Author” is different from her previous books.
“Whereas my other works were like me directing from off stage,” she said. “This one is like me stepping on stage, front and center.”
Okorafor began reading with the opening passage from the robot narrator of “Rusted Robots,” a book-within-a-book written by the main character of “Death of the Author” who, like Okorafor, is a Nigerian American author who writes science fiction.
Asked by an audience member to summarize her writing style, Okorafor described it as “organized chaos. I am a ‘pantser,’ which means that I write by the seat of my pants, so I don’t outline. I don’t know what I’m going to write until I sit down and do it.”
A global leader of Afrofuturism, her work includes speculative fiction for adults, young adults and children. Her allages graphic novel, “The Space Cat,” was published in 2025. She is also the author of Marvel titles including “Black Panther: Long Live the King, Shuri” and “Wakanda Forever.”
Her honors include the Wole Soyinka Prize for Literature, as well as Nebula, World Fantasy, Locus, Eisner and multiple Hugo and Lodestar awards. She holds a Ph.D. in literature and two master’s degrees in journalism and literature.
The event was sponsored by the Burdine Johnson Foundation and the Texas State University Department of English.
The KAP Center, located at 508 W. Center St in Kyle, will be hosting a reading by poet and novelist Naomi Shihab Nye on April 1 at 7 p.m.
Nye was elected into The American Academy of Arts & Sciences in 2021. Her most recent books are “Voices in the Air: Poems for Listeners” (2018) and “The Tiny Journalist” (2019).
An overflow crowd listened to Okorafor from the deck outside of the KAP writing center. Daily Record photo by John Clark
The childhood home of writer Katherine Anne Porter in Kyle. Photo courtesy of Texas State
The library and a photo of Katherine Anne Porter at the Texas State KAP Writing Center. Photo courtesy of Texas State
