Future Imperfect

Future Imperfect
The speculative fiction of UB associate professor Nnedi Okorafor is steeped in a gritty realism

Most authors can trace their love of writing back to childhood, but while Okorafor was a precocious reader, she assumed she’d be a professional athlete. She went on to become a track star in high school, despite developing severe scoliosis when she was 13. The summer after her freshman year at the University of Illinois, where she was on the tennis team, she underwent spinal fusion to correct her scoliosis, which doctors said would cripple her within a few years if left untreated.
And this is where Nnedi Okorafor’s own story took a dramatic and potentially tragic turn. A relatively common procedure for athletes, spinal fusion holds a very small risk of causing paralysis—about 1 percent.
“I was 19, and I woke up paralyzed. Turns out I was in that 1 percent. My surgeon was crying—I had just been named Athlete of the Year in Illinois. I went from being the super athlete to being paralyzed within 24 hours. I could either have gone mad in that hospital bed, or found some way to keep myself from going mad. The only way I could stop myself from going mad was by writing stories.”

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disability in kidlit writing representation