The Disability Book Archive

[ID: A book cover. The author’s name “Nnedi Okorafor” is written at the top in large brown caps. Above it, in smaller caps, text reading “Hugo, Nebula. and World Fantasy Award-Winning Author”. The title “Noor” is written in larger white caps at the bottom of the cover. Inside each letter, an orange line following the shape. In the middle of both “O”s, to stacked orange and white dots. The title is sandwiched by four light orange bars, two above it and two below it. The cover is bright yellow at the top and getting slightly darker going down. In the centre, art of a young black woman. She has her hair tied back in a thick bun. In the centre of her forehead, a red light surrounded by a thin metal border. Behind her it looks like there is a light shining. /end]

---

Content Warning:

• Ableism
• Violence
• Blood
• Animal Death
• Medical Content
• Body Horror
• Sexual Content
• Adult

---

Summary:

From Africanfuturist luminary Okorafor comes a new science fiction novel of intense action and thoughtful rumination on biotechnology, destiny, and humanity in a near-future Nigeria.

Anwuli Okwudili prefers to be called AO. To her, these initials have always stood for Artificial Organism. AO has never really felt…natural, and that’s putting it lightly. Her parents spent most of the days before she was born praying for her peaceful passing because even in-utero she was wrong. But she lived. Then came the car accident years later that disabled her even further. Yet instead of viewing her strange body the way the world views it, as freakish, unnatural, even the work of the devil, AO embraces all that she is: A woman with a ton of major and necessary body augmentations. And then one day she goes to her local market and everything goes wrong.

Once on the run, she meets a Fulani herdsman named DNA and the race against time across the deserts of Northern Nigeria begins. In a world where all things are streamed, everyone is watching the reckoning of the murderess and the terrorist and the saga of the wicked woman and mad man unfold. This fast-paced, relentless journey of tribe, destiny, body, and the wonderland of technology revels in the fact that the future sometimes isn’t so predictable. Expect the unaccepted.

---

Notes:

There is an audiobook.

There is an ebook. There is a kindle edition.

This book was nominated for the 2023 Audie Award for Science Fiction.

---

Archivist Comments:

Listen I know there can be a bit of discourse around cyborgs being disability represnetation etc. etc. but most reviews seem to be in agreement that the MCs usage of body augmentation and cybernetic parts doesn’t take away from the fact that she is disabled. Rather, it raises a lot of questions around disability, prosthetics and the overcommercialisation/capitalisation of the disability aid market by corporations and the government.

---