World Fantasy Award-winning novelist Nnedi Okorafor's debut young adult novel is Akata Witch, a beautifully wrought hero's journey story about Sunny, a young girl with albinism born to Nigerian parents in America, and then returned to Nigeria, where she discovers that she is a Leopard Person — a born sorcerer.
The structure of Sunny's journey to mastery of her wild talent is familiar enough, the stuff of much-loved Rowling and Duane novels. But the world of Leopard People, beautifully presented by Okorafor, makes it sing with freshness. The increasingly difficult challenges that Sunny and her three friends — a coven predicted in legend and come to Nigeria just in time to save the world from a murdering sorcerer bent on apocalypse — are each more fascinating and pulse-pounding than the last, and the magic they practice has that dream-logic plausibility of the best fantasy.
Young readers and adults who try Akata Witch will find it a marvellous and uplifting read, heartwarming in its portrayal of true freindship, heartbreaking in its portrayal of headstrong youth and the perils of pride. Woven throughout is an implicit commentary on America's relationship to Africa, the distinct identities of African Americans, Nigerians, and other West Africans, and the adolescent pain of trying to please your family even as you are discovering yourself. Highly recommended.
