Death of the Author is three things in one: a barely-in-the-future sci fi with the Zelu arc, an epistolary with the interviews and a sci fi with Ankara and Ijele's story.

The book does raise a lot of interesting topics such as disability and ableism, colonialism, patriarchy, capitalism, family, tradition, disapora and cultural identity, transhumanism, and eschatology. Among others - there is a lot going on here!

I feel like the human characters have a lot of room for interpretation. Most of them come across as slightly unhinged and mostly not likeable, but considering that Zelu is the most unlikeable of all, and we experience most of the characters through the lens of their interactions with her, maybe they're all just sick of her nonsense? But then again maybe Zelu is the way she is _because_ of her unhinged family. Maybe the family are the way _they_ are because of their history? I have to mention Wind too, she felt like a breath of fresh air in amongst all of the hotheadedness and I yearned for more of her when everyone was being unreasonable.

The interview sections seem to be implying that something huge involving Zelu is coming by the end of the book, but it's never really made clear what, which feels like a wasted opportunity. The interviews do give some context and back story but I thought it would have been really nice if all three threads built up to one conclusion. Also the mum says "when you talk to Secret" but then in next chapter Secret dies so if the interviews are happening after the event, he would already have been dead by then? Maybe I'm just misunderstanding but it stuck out as a confusing point to me.

The Ankara arc was by far my favourite, I could probably just read "Rusted Robots" on its own. I loved the different groups and how they evolved, and the overall concept of a post-humanity Earth. The ending though, I just don't see how it could have panned out like that, given the issues I've already talked about. If anything I think that final hail mary would have the opposite effect on me, but perhaps this book is suffering from being released during another nadir in recent history and I'm feeling more misanthropic than usual. I could really have done with a more sympathetic lead character and I think the ending would have been more believable with one.

I do feel like although this is being marketed as an adult book, it reads quite YA to me. Zelu is in her thirties but comes across much younger to me. Certain sections read very much "too good to be true" - for example the instant multi-million book and movie deals, or the gun range where she got a bullseye on her very first time ever shooting a gun and never missed the centre circle. Obviously, after reading the ending you could put that down to Ankara's lack of experience, but on first read I think it needlessly risks putting people off carrying on.

Overall, it's really hard to put a rating on this book. There were aspects I loved but I think for me it sets out to do a lot and doesn't quite make it. Perhaps I'm just not the target market, which is fine, but the marketing and hype strongly led me to believe that I was, which is an issue. I can see why people love it, and maybe I'll give it another try when the world is not currently on fire, but here and now this type of work just isn't for me. That said there is some great writing here and a lot to think about.

Many thanks to Gollancz and Netgalley for the eARC. I was not required to leave a review nor influenced as to its contents.

Thanks to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for the ARC.

What a story/stories! Nnedi Okorafor created two amazing stories, and in addition gifted us with my favourite main character type: loving, messy and striving to do best. I adored how the interviews gave the readers more insight in Zelus life, but her POV was unmatched. Truly a great recommendation for all sci-fi lovers!

4,5 stars

Thank you to the publisher for providing me with an advanced readers copy of this via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I’ve never read ANYTHING like this - I say that as a fan of speculative fiction! I loved it.

I didn’t know where we were going at any point in the entire book, I didn’t even find the characters particularly likeable, but I really really enjoyed the journey I was on with Zelu, Akara and Ijele.

I really enjoyed this as a perfect balance of literary fiction and sci-fi, with so many complex themes woven throughout;
- Nigerian/Niajamerican diaspora culture clashes
- Disability/our relationships with our bodies
- AI’s relationship with humanity and vice versa
- Different familial dynamics / chosen family
- The double edged sword of success, fame and growth
There’s probably many more I’ve forgotten to list here.
As I mentioned, I didn’t find any of the characters particularly likeable (usually a turn-off for me) but they were all extremely complex and multi-faceted. Even if it took a while for us to understand more about them and their motivations. I think this is a key component in how Nnedi Okorafor was able to deftly weave in so many massively complicated themes throughout an already winding complex plot.
From the second I picked it up, I couldn’t put it down, and I know this story will stay with me for a long time.

I loved everything about this book! I am not a huge science fiction reader but this makes me want to explore the genre more. I also love reading books about books or books about authors writing books so the description caught my eye straight away. I was also impressed by how intricately woven literary fiction and science fiction were blended together.

This author is a very skilled writer who creates fantastic world-building, realistic characters, and a storyline that makes it hard to put down. It is one of the best books I have read so far this year!

Thank you to NetGalley and the author for an E-ARC of this book

4.5! As a writer as well as a reader, this hit really hard. A novel within a novel which also bounces between the boundaries of lit-fic and sci fi, this was a novel which really started to feel impactful once it had a chance to settle within me.

There were delightful parallels throughout each of our perspectives, between Zelu and Ankara’s timeline which acted as mirrors and foils for each other. This is a novel in deep discussion with creativity, the rising power of AI and automation, racism, prejudice, and the question of the human soul. What does it mean, to create? The hubris of humanity is explored through the lenses of robots long after humanity has existed, but we’re also within Zelu’s modern timeline, as the creator of the narrator within our Rusted Robots.

Everything is in conversation with itself, and I was deeply reminded of the lit theory that everything is text.

While I found that there were certainly points the pacing got a little bogged down, and there are areas for improvement - this is a read which delighted and resonated with me, as it will with everyone who loves stories, for different reasons. There are multitudes in the pages.

Zelu is a wild and selfish protagonist, and the agency of her life is largely taken out of her hands - which is indeed an interesting plot device for a book so centred around agency, control, and the needing to let go of it. But I found her vibrancy carried us on this journey of an author who’s work transcends herself, and where we see the pages of it carried out, and where you realise that what you thought was truth might be fiction, and then you realise that, the two are always more connected at their roots.

Ankara and Ijele where VITAL to this story, and where the heart of its sci fi aspects come from, as inhabitants of a post apocalyptic world where automation rules. I adored their connection, the deep relationship they built. I feel like this is where the heart of the novel lies, and which often had the moments that struck me deepest.

Not the novel I was expecting, but one I needed. As Zelu said, somethings it’s better to get what you needed rather than what you wanted.

I seem to be reading a lot of Nigerian books at the moment. This one has a large and lively family living in the US but, for most of them, regularly returning to Nigeria. Zelu is working at a university thanklessly teaching creative writing to horrible students when we meet her, though she's soon not there thanks to some pitiless feedback she deals out.

She's an uncompromising, selfish and spiky heroine who makes some very iffy decisions; but she's self-aware and funny, too, and her family is annoying but wonderful. Living with paraplegia and all the cultural issues that involves for her since she had a fall aged 12, Zelu suddenly becomes famous when she ditches her literary fiction mode to dip into science fiction - and in a book within a book, we get (I think) the whole of her novel within the text, with her main character, Ankara, getting the mended legs she'll never have - or will she? Entitled rich White men seem keen to offer her endless tech possibilities, but she runs the risk of appearing like a sell-out or even getting cancelled ...

Well, this book managed to get me reading stuff I don't normally read: the robot-based sci fi in the book-within-a-book and in fact near-future fiction, as aspects of the main novel have futuristic sides that don't yet exist right now. As well as the two novels, we have a set of interviewed with all the main characters, conducted by a journalist as he follows Zelu's progress, so it's a technically adept and clever book which covers a lot of topics as well as entertaining and it also fooled this reader into thinking the ending was going to be quite different to what actually ensued! Unputdownable.

Review on my blog published 24 Feb: https://librofulltime.wordpress.com/2025/02/24/two-reviews-lizzie-damilola-blackburns-the-re-write-and-nnedi-okorafors-death-of-the-author/

What a wonderfully written work of art. So timely and relevant.

As we learn about the main character Zelu, we are also reading the novel that Zelu writes; about robots existing in a world wjere all the humans have died.

Set in the not too distant future, going by some of the more advamced technology used, we meet Zelu; daughter of Nigerian parents who emigrated to America. We get to know her siblings and their connection to the homeland and their culture is essential to both stories within the book. I felt privileged to get an insight into the intraccies of Igbo and Yoruba heritage as it was portrayed in this novel.

Zelu had an accident when she was 12, leaving her without the use of her legs, relying on a wheelchair to move around the world. Her main character in Rusted Robots is Ankara, a scholar robot who collects stories left by the humans. We are constantly asked to consider where we are now in our world and where we may end up. Theres so much more to the novel; about identity, relationships, hopes, dreams, tradition, ableism, the use of technology.

In essence, I had a wonderful time and felt that I got to experience a world that is not mine, that deserves to be heard more often.

Do you like stories within other stories?

I think this is such a fascinating concept and it cannot be easy to make both equally compelling. But in “Death of the author” Nnedi Okorafor does this incredibly well.

Zelu is our main character and she is a disabled Nigerian American professor who has been going through a lot of hardships. She was fired from her job and her latest novel was rejected. On top of that she deals with family pressures and feelings of inadequacy.

After being fired she decides to write a book very unlike everything she wrote before, a Sci-Fi drama called “Rusted Robots “, and it becomes a major success. In her book she explores what it means to be human through the medium of robots and AI in an alternate world where humanity is extinct.

When Zelu started writing “Rusted Robots” I was enthralled, it was so good!😭I thought Sci-Fi wasn’t really my thing, but after reading this book I decided to look into it more. The fact that it was quite a literary book only added to the overall value of the story. I definitely must read more books by Nnedi Okorafor. 💕

Zelu’s life starts to change as a result of this success and we see the impact success can have on someone and those around them. This brings opportunities into her life she never thought possible, but also increases some of the strains in her relationships.

I though the writing was overall exceptional, however , towards the middle of the book I lost a bit of focus in the story and there were many POVs, but I am glad I persevered because it is indeed a beautiful book. It just took some dedication on my part to keep with the story.

Thank you Netgalley, the publisher, and author for this e-ARC. All opinions are my own.

Death of the Author is a genre bending mix of sci-fi and literary fiction, with one side coming out more strongly at the end (the twist will show you which one).

It alternates between two narratives: one is Zelu, a paraplegic Nigerian American author struggling with her next book, until she writes something completely out of character - a dystopian science fiction about AI after the fall of humankind called Rusted Robots that makes her rich and famous overnight, and the other is Ankara, an emotionally advanced Hume robot from Zelu’s novel who is trying to prevent the destruction of earth from invaders, all whilst battling civil war with other AI beings and making friends with an interesting array of characters.

You get chapters from Rusted Robots - a novel within a novel - but you predominantly get Zelu’s life with her chaotic family (as one of five siblings and a large extended family in Nigeria). The novel travels between Chicago, Nigeria and even space - all propelled by the choices Zelu makes.

Zelu is a messy character, but she is always unapologetically herself. A large element of the book is Zelu’s disability and how she is moving ever closer to solutions that over step into the world of her novel.

I really enjoyed the different perspectives - all of the characters were well drawn, and the twist is a good one, making you reevaluate your initial interpretation of the novel. I also enjoyed the Nigeria centric aspect of the novel, even in Rusted Robots which is focused on Lagos as the epicentre of both the wars and the resistance.

Thematically Death of the Author is about identity, family, art, friendship, storytelling, creation and humanity. Big topics and it covers a lot of ground!

It came out in the UK this week, and I got to finish it whilst travelling in West Africa which was a bonus! Huge thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for the advanced copy.

“Death of the Author” by Nnedi Okorafoe is an intriguing blend of literary fiction and speculative fiction or scifi, based on your take on how the latter genres differ. The story is focused on Zelu, a disabled and recently unemployed woman who found sudden fame when the book she had written during her lowest times made it big. When her novel catapulted her into an unprecedented status on social media, Zelu had to navigate the consequences of life as a bestselling author, a daughter who never seems to be good enough, and a disabled POC who is always expected to represent a subset of her identity in one way or another. Interspersed between Zelu’s interpersonal drama are chapters from her scifi novel, Rusted Robots, which also plays a role in the narrative in unexpected ways.

The litfic portion of the book reminded me a lot of Yellowface in how it examined the publishing & movie industries and how the two form a symbiotic (& sometimes parasitic) relationship with social media platforms and fandom. There is also plenty of family drama with Zelu being an almost antagonistic protagonist with some of her decisions; as a reader, I can empathize with Zelu’s frustrations, but I can also see the flipside of her abrasive personality (her decisions sometimes had me echoing her mother oohh). This is testament to Okorafor’s excellent character work, since Zelu and the side characters felt so familiar and true to life.

The scifi portion of the book felt a little less developed, though intentionally so when you consider the turn the story took towards the end. I won’t spoil it for you, but the twist catapulted this read into a 4-star rating for me. This book also managed to surprise me with how many issues it could pack into a story, though it does make the novel feel a little bit scattered. I feel like you’d appreciate this most if you’re a fan of literary fiction first & a scifi fan second, because at heart, this is really a book about storytelling and its importance in humankind’s existence.

Death of the Author is quite a unique sci-fi novel with a side of lit-fic and I really enjoyed reading it!

It has somewhat of a double plot, with the main one focusing on debut-author Zelu, her sudden rise to fame and her life thereafter, and the second one featuring parts of the MC's sci-fi novel. While the sci.fi part was intriguing, I found it less compelling than Zelu's life itself. Paraplegic due to an accident she had at 12 years of age, Zelu has to deal with her overbearing family, the difficulties of navigating society with such a disability and the way her Nigerian community sees disabled people. Suddenly put in the spotlight when her debut novel becomes an incredible success, her life becomes filled with a whirlwind of novelties, including some that somehow seem to reflect the futurism of her own book.

Zelu isn't a particularly amiable character - she's not the FMC that welcomes the world with open arms and lets others tell her what she should do or be without a fight. She has dreams, she has things she want, and she makes sure to go for them when the opportunity arises - even if it might hurt those around her. She grew on me throughout the book and had me really invested in her adventures!

The sections of the the book dedicated to Zelu's novel, Rusted Robots, read slower and I found myself reading even faster to get back to Zelu's life. I don't know that the ending given to that part of the plot satisfied me, because it felt a bit over-simplistic for such a complex storyline. It had some interesting sides to it, though.

Overall, I'd definitely recommend this to readers who enjoy a blend of genres and dual plot-lines! Thank you so much to the publisher and Netgalley for the ARC.

“What better time to listen to a story when the world is about to end?”

Death of the Author is one of these books I didn’t know if I loved or hated while I was reading them. Why? Because the book questions so much, on so many levels, that it makes the brain go everywhere, especially in uncomfortable places. That’s what makes it incredible in the end.
There is so much in this book about ecology, representation in books, cancelling culture, disability, stories’ power, not finding your roots, … and so much more. That said, as you could suspect by the title, the most central theme –or the one that made its nest most prominently in me– is about creation, but, mostly, what happens to the content, and to the creator, once the art (the book, here) in the hands of its public. I loved that most of the story occurs after the MC has released her book, and to read what whirls in her head –and all the feelings it triggers– while she, in some way, grieves her book/creation when her story “slips out of her hands to also belong to her reader. It was a truly powerful reading, and how Zelu acts in reaction to all that was a delight to witness.
I loved how “Rusty Robots”, her Sci-Fi story, mixed with the contemporary timeline, as much as I adored the twist that only made the story more breathtaking. In the end, that makes us question if we couldn’t be the ones living the dystopia (I have my very own opinion about that). Like the ivy in her room, everything clings, mixes, weaves in a fascinating blend that produces a book that will linger for a long time in my mind. Surely one I’ll want to reread in the future.

Thank you to the author and Gollancz for the eARC via NetGalley. My opinions are my own.

I am leaving my honest review voluntarily.

Nnedi Okorafor is an automatic buy for me; I love her writing. This book is so imaginative, literally a book within a book. Following headstrong wheelchair-bound literary professor-turned-sci-fi author Zelu. She is navigating her newfound stardom and begins to discover who she is and the strength she has within herself. Zelu is such a real character, with her snarkiness, hesitations to things for fear of how she will be viewed, hurt from the lack of support, and the shunning of those she thought cared for her. Her anger cooks beneath the surface because of her situation, which grows with every letdown.

This book had the feeling of a time travel or varied timeline story because we switch between Zelu and her world and the world within the fictional sci-fi story written by Zelu.

In my opinion, it is not a true sci-fi novel, so be prepared for that. It is more literary fiction, but this is not a deal-breaker for me. I loved this book. I will purchase this book to add to my collection of Nnedi Okorafor novels on my shelves.

Thank you, Netgalley, Orion Publishing Group | Gollancz, and Nnedi Okorafor, for the ARC of this imaginative book.

Death of the Author is partially a literary fiction novel, partially a science fiction novel and totally brilliant.

Author Zelu is a disabled woman who has just lost her job and had her most recent novel rejected. She has to move back home to live with her parents and impulsively decides to write an Afrofuturist sci-fi novel about a human shaped android, navigating the world after the extinction of humans. The two stories about Zelu and her robot are intertwined and the reader learns about humanity, stories and the end of the world.

A recommended read for lovers of literary fiction and/or sci-fi.

How much of a story is the author? In many ways all of it but at the same time crime authors don’t really plan to kill people or horror authors all mess with powers they should know better to touch. But knowing JRR Tolkien fought in WW1 will give you some insight into some scenes and themes in Lord of the Rings. For readers we get impressions of authors through their wok, a connection we feel that may be quite unlike the real person. In Nnedi Okorafor’s fascinating novel Death of the Author we explore these links in a mix of reality and science fictional ideas to create something quite surprising and for me an engrossing tale of family, choices and a desire to live your own life.

Zelu is having a very difficult day attending her sister’s wedding. Her very judging relatives are saying that as she is paraplegic and as a woman in a wheelchair, that she will struggle to find someone, her agent says her literary novel on submission has again been rejected and she has just been fired as an adjunct professor for taking down a selfish student whose work she does not rate at all. The tailspin she is in though means Zelu surprisingly finally feels a novel come to life in her. A science fiction epic called Rusted Robots. It becomes a worldwide bestseller and soon a giant movie deal is calling but for Zelu this also finally could offer her some freedoms, but it may not mean she gets the understanding and acceptance she is always craving.

This is a complex novel to describe. For me it is very much a story exploring choices and being true to who you are and what you want. We have Zelu’s timeline as a common thread watching her star rise and fall in publishing, and this is constantly matched up with excerpts from Rusted Robots which tells us the story of a post-human world of robots in the wreckage of humanity fighting a war against AIs and also now finding out a danger is heading to earth as well. A scholar robot named Ankara who forms a bond with an AI known as Ijele that both sides in the war would destroy both if they found out about it. The question the book poses is how much does a story and its author really tell you about the author.

Zelu for me is the standout character. An american woman with Nigerian parents of Igbo and Yoruba parentage. A clash of royalty and working-class ideals and she is one of four siblings who love to argue, and some would say compete against each other. They all have high flying jobs and are moving into marriage while Zelu to them appears to be a disappointment and crucially that she is disabled also seems to ply a factor. There are things she is felt she cannot o and her parents has as one character says built a house around her which in her mind-thirties she has not left. At the same time Zelu is very much her own person, she enjoys casual relationships, weed and not hiding her thoughts and opinions but she’s not where she wants to be, and that frustration leads to her epic sacking and the creation of a huge hit science fiction novel which she admits was not something she was expecting to do. Zelu as we find out is very much a character focused on what she wants to do in the moment even when there may be consequences and judgements she then must deal with as she doesn’t always consider (or care about) the fallout. The intriguing question is where does this come from? And as we see in Rusted Robots that may also be something she too explores as a consequence of the book.

Okorafor explores family pressure, ableism and culture from many angles in this story. How Zelu gets judged by many for being disabled and in an unusual science-fictional scene when she is offered to have an incredible new set of artificial leg enhancements that give her the power to walk. Her family are more horrified at Zelu becoming seen as a freak and getting hurt. She finds media accuses her of ablism. Zelu though is just considering tat she wants to be able to walk for the first time since she was 12. Zelu can be seen as incentive and unlikeable, but I loved the way we have to learn to accept her own her own terms. Later in the novel for very personal reasons she takes a trip that gets her into huge danger which she is warned against, but she still does it and there are more consequences and its about owning the aftermath of that which is Zelu’s personal breakthough. It is marked that her one strongest relationship is with a man named Msizi who rarely judges her and knows she needs to do what she wants, and he rarely asks for her to do things in return. It’s a wonderfully adult and complex relationship that works for both of them and offers her some respite from the wider world and family. It hints that Zelu is very much a character who lives in the moment - she hasn’t wanted to be an SF writer she just needed to write one just then, its not then her career path in itself but a stepping stone to other choices and decisions which can be both perplexing and yet eventually we see they take her to what she needs most of all – clarity of thought and tying back to her earliest ambition.

There are plenty of other things to enjoy. While the megahit Rusted Robots is probably the most unlikely and speediest turnaround of a book and movie deal it allows Okorafar to explore changing tastes, media reaction, social media pressure and the peril of movie adaptations but this is more with a wry smile than an in depth investigation of publishing but reminds us once a book it out there the author can become public property, a commercial deal and in many ways irrelevant to marketing. I would have loved though a little more explanation of why this book appears as several characters say to have caught the zeitgeist and connected so much with people.

The Rusted Robots sections are for me where we get to explore Zelu from a very different perspective. Its not simple allegory Zelu is not like any of the characters in the story nor do we recognise family members but at the same time this is a story reflecting some Nigerian culture, attitudes to becoming some less than or more than human and the power of stories to pull people along. There is a neat little revelation in Zelu’s section that her dad loved Human Heads songs, and a reference gets reflected one way in her story and another in the Robots showing us how influences echo in stories. We can see Zelu’s life in the Robot’s story too but its more with a side glance and a lot of interpretation and layering going on. Creativity works both ways and perhaps this story opens up Zelu’s future choices in particular regards her legs and desire to live outside of her family home. The finale really plays with these two tales and could be seen as too cute to explain some handwavium or as I did a reminder that even these two stories are part of a book, and an author is too weaving words, themes and images at us the reader to now process in a different way.

If you come to Death of the Author expecting pure SF you’ll possibly be disappointed and if you come expecting a gritty literary contemporary novel about publishing then you’ll be perplexed with some places this goes to but I liked a lot how this crosses both worlds and explores how each gets influenced by the other. Science fiction is always for me talking about the time it is written in and the author too reflects their own perspective of their world. We though as readers create our own versions in the reading experience so we may miss subtle clues as we never get to see the whole life story of an author before a book gets written, like icebergs most is under the surface. This story explores where authors and their stories come from and it’s not a straightforward process at all. Death of the Author will be hanging around my mind for some time as I ponder the power of stories in a really interesting way. Highly recommended!

A wonderful piece of original Sci-fi/tech based fiction. Towards the ending of reading this fictional autobiography of an author’s journey to success and possible ruin and a her published robot AI adventure story of a struggle to survive, I found that the story’s perspective totally flipped and I had to re-evaluate what the story was really all about. That surprised me. Good fiction does that. It would have been 4 stars without that for me, unresolved juxtaposition of story teller. Thank you to Orion Publishing Group and NetGalley for the ARC. The views expressed are all mine, freely given.

3.75*

I was so intrigued by the premise of this book and loved the idea of a book within a book with sci-fi elements and for the most part I was really satisfied with what I found.

This is definitely sci-fi lite and felt much more literary and family drama focused (which if you've read any other books with Nigerian families will feel very familiar). I thought the writing was fantastic and I loved the slower character focused build up in the first half. We have events happen but they feel natural and well paced and I loved the quasi future elements (the self-driving cars, the exoskeleton) mixed in with the 'Rusted Robots' book excerpts.

It really was building up to be a high 4* read for me but I felt that the story took an abrupt turn with the introduction of the space launch prospect and it just didn't feel as grounded in reality as the rest of the book had been to that point. The pace then ramped up so that the careful story telling of the first half turned about face as we raced to the end which felt a little too abrupt for me.

Don't go into this expecting a true science fiction novel and you will be more likely to enjoy it. Thankfully I'd seen some reviews highlighting that so went into it with the right level of expectation and I really did like it, I just ended up not loving it overall as much as I hoped to.

Thank you to Netgalley and Orion Publishing Group | Gollancz for this digital review copy of "Death of the Author" in exchange for my honest and voluntary review.

This was an interesting book that seemed less science fiction and more family drama. I liked Zelu as the main character but never felt I was fully engaged with how this book was written - probably because I would rather this had more of the robot chapters.

I have been hearing about this one everywhere! I did enjoy it but I really wish it had more sci fi aspects in it. I really enjoyed the robot chapters and did not enjoy Zelu’s chapters quite as much. The overall concepts were unique and interesting though. The ending felt a bit rushed. Overall a good read!

Wow what a read. Margaret Atwoods the blind assassin is one of my favourite books of all time and this story encapsulates that same vibe a story within a story nothing is quite what it seems.

The mix of sci-fi interwoven with the Nigerian folklore and heritage is stunning. I leant so much about Nigerian life and navigating life in American. The characters are complex and story is so compelling I found I could not put it down.

Zelu is flawed but understandable and her slow loss of connection with reality is beautifully told from her own POvV and those around her.