Binti: Home by Nnedi Okorafor

I enjoyed the first Binti book, so I was excited to see that Ms. Okorafor has published a new one. Binti was the story of a sheltered young woman going into a very big world and eventually making her mark on it. The world expanded over the course of the first novel, as new worlds and characters were introduced.  While most series continue to expand their universes by taking their protagonists to more and more new worlds, Binti: Home constricts the universe by taking us back to Binti's home village, where she must face the consequences of defying the social norms of her culture.

The story begins with Binti, our protagonist, in a blue funk.  She is feeling guilty that she has not completed her tribal coming of age ceremony because she is attending school on a faraway planet. Members of Binti's Himba tribe, especially Himbi, don't go to school and they don't leave their village, and they certainly don't leave earth. Even though the university that Binti attends is a model of diversity, boasting students from dozens of species, Binti is the only Himba who has ever attended the school.  She also feels isolated because of her notoriety, and it doesn't help that all of the humans in her class were killed in the first Binti novel - in fact, Okwu, her only friend, is one of the gas-breathing, tentacled aliens that slaughtered them, which only amplifies Binti's PTSD and general malaise.

Everyone hates Okwu, because until Binti negotiated a rapprochement, its species, the Meduse, had been in near-constant warfare with all the so-called civilized planets.  The price of peace was for Binti to incorporate some Meduse DNA, including a tentacle that doesn't quite match her dreadlocks. For obvious reasons, none of this has helped Binti make friends at her new school.  Binti needs a break, so she tells her counselor at school that she has to go home.  Of course, Okwu will tag along as an envoy of the Meduse, whose visit to Earth will mark the first time ever that a Meduse will visit our planet for any reason other than to decimate it.

When Binti first gets home, there is a delegation to meet her at the fixme:airport, and her family is overjoyed to see her.  Unfortunately, Okwu is hot-tempered and extremely lethal, and he seems to be almost looking for a fight.  There are several tense stand-offs between Okwu and the honorary color guard, Okwu and the mayor, you name it, Okwu wants to decimate it, in spite of his nominally dimplomatic role.  Things seem to be going smoothly for Binti, although the tentacle on her head garners some wierd looks.  It's all a charade, because the guilt trip begins almost the moment the family gets behind closed doors: she has abandoned her family, sullied her pure Himda blood with Meduse DNA, and so on.  Binti cries herself to sleep that night.  A terrifying ancestral spirit called a Night Masquerade visits her.  Only certain important men have ever been visited by a Night Masquerade.  It appears that the Masquerade is accommpanied by a group of Desert People - nomads who live deep in the desert.  They have come for Binti.  Now she must leave her family to discover an ancient secret about herself and her lineage.  I don't want to ruin the story for you, so won't go into any more detail about the plot, but it has a couple of twists.

What I love about Ms. Okorafor's novels is that she is able to blend pure sci-fi with real tribal traditions and practices and produce a really unique world.  The Himba beliefs and attitudes that she describes are borrowed directly from African people, and she deftly intersperses these truths into a very alien future with a very old soul.  The Himbi have retained their reverence for nature, their connection with place and their tribal magic has evolved alongside science.  The Desert People have remained closer to the earth, but they remember when the earth was visited by aliens in prehistory.

Binti:Home is full of surprises and contradictions, but above all, it has a respect for all people and their perspective.  Binti's world is truly diverse: Back at home, almost every traveler was human... here, everyone was everything.  And everyone can be anything they want to be:
She told me that though she'd always  been female, she'd been born physically male.  Later when she was 13 she'd had her body transitioned and reassigned to female. 
Same with polyamory and bisexuality:
I will tell all my male mates - maybe even some of my female mates.
Ms. Okorafor reimagines technology in a very organic way.  The Himbi use something like a psychically powered astrolabe to navigate space, and trains are made of giant insect husks that float on slime secreted by pitcher plants.

There is beauty and grandeur in the African desert of Binti's home, and Ms. Okorafor recognizes it and celebrates it in a subtle way. There is magic and mindfulness and meditation, and love and familial ties, and tribal traditions, and honor and the constant conflict between obligation and individuality.  And Ms. Okorafor just narrates the story - she never takes sides, and she seems to be able to describe all of the perspectives dispassionately, yet compassionately.  As a reader, you begin to take things like gender reassignment and tribal tradition for granted, too, and to respect all of the characters and their opinions, which is no small feat in this divided world.  As an American of European descent, I feel like I get a tiny bit of insight into the potential and wonder of Africa and its people.