‘Genres are Formless, Protean Things’

Our questions are italicized.

My earliest interaction with reading was limited to English children’s authors like Enid Blyton (especially the Famous Five series). Then as a pre-teen, I diversified into a mix of heavy and light tomes from my parents’ bookshelves, which stocked everything from Mario Puzo crime novels to Mary Higgins Clark romantic-suspenses. Secondary school introduced me to more African and indigenous literature, which made me recognize the Ayi Kwei Armah, Chukwuemeka Ike and J.P. Clark books we had at home. My foray into speculative literature came much later in life, after I randomly read the epic fantasy novel, Silverhand by Morgan Llywelyn and Michael Scott. From then on, I fell down the rabbit hole of speculative literature and have lived in its fantastic worlds ever since.

Octavia Butler. I came to her work much later, after I’d read a lot of speculative fiction that wasn’t very representative of people of colour. I read Bloodchild and Parable of the Sower in 2014, and I immediately thought, ‘Here’s someone managing to tell captivating stories where Black and African people show up in far-flung galaxies or in the apocalypse, while tacking contemporary matters. I want to be able to do that.’ I’m glad that her work exists at all, and that it can continue to inspire generations.

Time has taught me that genres are formless, protean things. They mostly help booksellers and publishers, which is fine because businesses need labels. But as an artist and reader, I’ve found that my basic instinct is for a story to meet a desired emotion. Fantasy readers want to be transported to a strange, magical world more than they want to read fantasy, and you could say the equivalent for crime or romance readers. While my stories have a tendency for the speculative, I consider reader experience more often. If I offer a specific experience regardless of genre, readers who desire any degree of that specific experience would read it anyway, whether they read speculative fiction or not. Once a writer settles upon specific engines to power their stories—be it noir vibes or romantic tension—does genre then really matter? I guess what I’m saying is that writer and genre find each other along the way. Genres tend more to happen to writers, but sometimes, writers also happen to genres.