Nnedi Okorafor’s ‘Death of the Author’ Wins 2026 NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Fiction

Nnedi Okorafor, Nigerian-American author and pioneer of African Futurism, received her first-ever NAACP Image Award in the Outstanding Literary Work – Fiction category for her novel ‘Death of the Author,’ published by William Morrow. 

The win was announced during the first night of the 57th NAACP Image Awards virtual pre-show, which focused on literary, short-form, and creator categories. For a writer who has spent decades centring Nigerian culture and Black identity in speculative fiction, and collecting Hugo, Nebula, and World Fantasy Awards along the way, having that work recognised by the NAACP membership specifically carries its weight.

If you haven't read it yet, here's what you need to know. The novel follows Zelu, a disabled Nigerian-American author who has always been the odd one out in her large, traditional Nigerian family, uninterested in medicine or law, unmarried by choice, and far more devoted to writing than any of it.

After being fired from her university job and receiving yet another publisher rejection on the same day as her sister's lavish Caribbean wedding, she decides to write something purely for herself. What comes out is nothing like her previous quiet, literary work. It's a sweeping, far-future epic about androids and AI waging war in the overgrown ruins of human civilisation, which she titles "Rusted Robots."

What happens next is the real story. When Zelu finally shares "Rusted Robots" with the world, it takes off in ways she never anticipated, catapulting her into a literary stardom that threatens to consume everything the book was meant to be. The novel travels from Chicago to Lagos to the far reaches of space, and asks a genuinely unsettling question: what does it mean for a story to outlive, or even overwrite, its author?

'Death of the Author' is a book about a woman writing a book, which means readers get both the intimate, often funny drama of Zelu navigating family judgment and sudden fame, and the full text of the "Rusted Robots" sci-fi epic unfolding alongside it. George R.R. Martin, not typically known for blurbing outside his genre, put it plainly: the novel reads like three or four books in one, covering fame, family, culture, the writer's life, and robots. "This one has it all," he wrote.

The NAACP Image Awards, now in their 57th year, were established in 1967 to honour outstanding achievements and positive portrayals of people of colour across film, television, theatre, music, and literature. What sets them apart from most awards in the space is their membership-voted structure.

Over 40 categories are voted on by NAACP members, which means a win here reflects genuine resonance within the Black community, not just critical consensus or industry insiders. The ceremony has earned the informal designation of the "Black Oscars" for exactly that reason; it recognises artists and entertainers of colour who mainstream awards circuits might overlook, and it does so with a constituency that has skin in the game.

For Okorafor, winning in the fiction category means her work, rooted in Nigerian mythology, Africanfuturism, and the specific textures of the Black diaspora experience, landed with the very community it speaks to most directly.

Okorafor is the author behind the beloved ‘Binti’ series, ‘Who Fears Death,’ ‘Akata Witch,’ ‘Lagoon,' and many others. She is also the person who coined the terms Africanfuturism and Africanjujuism to describe her own literary framework, a science fiction rooted in African culture, not simply transposed from Western traditions. Her accolades include the Hugo Award, Nebula Award, Eisner Award, and World Fantasy Award, making her one of the most decorated writers working in speculative fiction today.

Still, despite all of that, this is her first NAACP Image Award. She received a nomination back in 2008 for "The Shadow Speaker," but it took until now, with a book many are already calling her most ambitious, for the win to come through.

It was worth the wait.

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