logo
episode-header-image
Mar 2021
26m 58s

Afrofuturism: Black women changing the s...

Bbc World Service
About this episode
<p>Is science fiction too white? Kim Chakanetsa meets two women who are diversifying the genre. They talk about finding inspiration, dealing with rejection, and what Afrofuturism means to them. N.K. Jemisin is an African-American psychologist and science fiction writer. Her Broken Earth trilogy won the Hugo Award for Best Novel three years in a row. She’s ... Show More
Up next
Mar 2
Pregnancy by numbers
Ella Al-Shamahi talks to two women in Pakistan and America who use numbers to help others understand and take control of their pregnancies - by unpacking the data.Emily Oster is a bestselling author and leading expert on pregnancy, championing a data-based approach and unpacking ... Show More
26m 28s
Feb 23
Women-only living
Datshiane Navanayagam talks to two women in France and Canada about why single-sex living spaces appeal to older women.Pat Dunn is 75 and started a Facebook group for senior women wanting to share a living space, after her husband died six years ago. There she found two housemate ... Show More
26m 29s
Feb 16
Women making fashion for all
Datshiane Navanayagam talks to two women whose life changing illnesses led them to set up new businesses after they discovered high street clothes are uncomfortable and difficult to wear when you have restricted mobility or medical needs.Victoria Jenkins is one of the UK's leadin ... Show More
26m 29s
Recommended Episodes
May 2022
Breaking the boundaries of fiction
How novelists working across popular genres like crime, horror and fantasy are overcoming literary snobbery to get their work the credit it deserves and broaden the definition of what makes truly great writing. South Korean horror writer Bora Chung, shortlisted for the 2022 Inter ... Show More
27m 21s
Jan 2024
Women of Science Fiction: Pauline Hopkins
Pauline Hopkins (1859-1930) was a pioneering writer who published articles and serialized novels across genres. She’s known as the author of the first science fiction novel by a woman of color – written decades before the term sci-fi was widely used. Today, you can see her ideas ... Show More
5m 42s
Jan 2024
American Fiction is a rich story — but is it a successful satire?
American Fiction is a movie you can spend hours discussing. Based on Percival Everett's novel Erasure, the movie is a satire of what the publishing industry wants from Black authors. The film also belongs to a lineage of Black movies that look at selling out in the entertainment ... Show More
20m 13s
Jun 2022
What next for Afrofuturism?
This week we’re exploring Afrofuturism, the movement that blends fantasy, folklore and technology, to imagine a new future for African nations and people of African heritage. Four years after the smash hit movie Black Panther turned Afrofuturism into an unstoppable artistic force ... Show More
26m 42s
Feb 2023
Inside the rise of LGBTQ+ fiction
Erica Gillingham is joined by a panel of leading international LGBTQ+ writers to discuss the growing popularity of queer fiction and the challenges posed by book bans. At a time when sales are increasing and LGBTQ+ authors are winning awards, in countries including the United Sta ... Show More
27m 17s
Sep 2021
Melissa Daniels-Rauterkus, "Afro-Realisms and the Romances of Race: Rethinking Blackness in the African American Novel" (LSU Press, 2020)
From the 1880s to the early 1900s, a particularly turbulent period of U.S. race relations, the African American novel provided a powerful counternarrative to dominant and pejorative ideas about blackness. In Afro-Realisms and the Romances of Race: Rethinking Blackness in the Afri ... Show More
2h 28m
May 2023
Hosam A. Ibrahim Elzembely and Emad El-Din Aysha, "Arab and Muslim Science Fiction" (McFarland, 2022)
How is science fiction from the Arab and Muslim world different than mainstream science fiction from the West? What distinctive and original contributions can it make? Why is it so often neglected in critical considerations of the genre? While other books have explored these ques ... Show More
1 h
Sep 2021
Toni Morrison: The legacy of a literary legend
The American writer Toni Morrison once said, “If there’s a book that you want to read, but it hasn’t been written yet, then you must write it.” It was an urge which in her case yielded a rich array of novels, children’s books, plays and essays. Toni Morrison stands tall, as the f ... Show More
39m 38s