Binti

Her name is Binti, and she is the first of the Himba people ever to be offered a place at Oomza University, the finest institution of higher learning in the galaxy. But to accept the offer will mean giving up her place in her family to travel between the stars among strangers who do not share her ways or respect her customs.

Knowledge comes at a cost, one that Binti is willing to pay, but her journey will not be easy. The world she seeks to enter has long warred with the Meduse, an alien race that has become the stuff of nightmares. Oomza University has wronged the Meduse, and Binti's stellar travel will bring her within their deadly reach.

If Binti hopes to survive the legacy of a war not of her making, she will need both the the gifts of her people and the wisdom enshrined within the University, itself - but first she has to make it there, alive.

Nnedi Okorafor was born in the United States to two Igbo (Nigerian) immigrant parents. She holds a PhD in English and is an associate professor of creative writing, currently teaching at the University at Buffalo. Her first novel written for the adult market, Who Fears Death, won the World Fantasy Award for Best Novel. She has been the winner of many more awards for her short stories and young adult books, including the Wole Soyinka Africa Prize for Literature, the Macmillan Writer's Prize for Africa, the Carl Brandon Parallax Award, the Black Excellence Award for Outstanding Achievement in Literature, the Margin: Exploring Modern Magical Realism Short Story Contest, and the Strange Horizons Readers Choice Award for Nonfiction. She has also been a finalist for the Essence Magazine Literary Award, Tiptree Award, a British Science Fiction Association Award (Best Novel) and the Theodore Sturgeon Award. She was also a nominee for the NAACP Imagine Award, among others. Nnedi's books are inspired by her Nigerian heritage and her many trips there. Nnedi lives in Illinois with her daughter Anyaugo and family.