It is Irenosen Okojie’s ability to criss-cross past and present that leads her towards Black To The Future, a forward-thinking discussion of how black artistry, ancestry and tradition can lead the way to a better future. The event explores the Afro-Futurist movement, looking at diasporic stories through the lens of science and technology. For Okojie, whose writing journey began with a successful short-story collection, Afro-Futurism manifests in the interrogation of the world around her, visible in the speculative fiction she produces. ‘You can’t really look at the future without looking at the past,’ she says, citing CJ Obasi’s 2023 film, Mami Wata, as one example of the form. The concept filters into all aspects of culture, pioneered by the likes of Sun Ra, Samuel R Delany and Octavia Butler, whose 1993 novel Parable Of The Sower is set in a post-apocalyptic 2024. 

Tracing movements like this, Okojie says, is ‘almost like catching a fire. Once it starts to happen, it begins to spread. Hopefully that will carry on, and we can continue to have artists creating these incredible worlds and commenting on the worlds that we’re experiencing now, the ones that feel interesting and charged and relevant.’ Okojie’s writing sparks with this energy, spanning time and space and revealing innate connections between characters. 

Her most recent novel, Curandera, bonds four individuals living in present-day London with one woman traversing 17th-century Gethsemane alone, causing supernatural disruption in the town where she settles. Looking at African and indigenous spirituality through shamanism, Curandera causes reality to shift before our eyes in kaleidoscopic ways (her other publications include a 2019 short-story collection Nudibranch, and a 2016 novel Butterfly Fish). Okojie’s ability to weave entire worlds into the span of a single sentence, macroscopic concepts into microscopic actions, is a testament to her imaginative prowess. Through dense metaphorical description, she brings small moments into significance, running the past parallel to the present and looking to the future in the same way. 

How can we hope for a better future when the past seems tainted with hardship? Okojie aims to shine a light on hidden histories rather than the common narratives. ‘Racism does exist and it’s a regular, painful thing that black people and people of colour have to deal with and negotiate constantly,’ she says. ‘The inherited trauma that we have to grapple with is really tough, so it’s definitely important to have the conversation, but it can’t be the only conversation. We have to look at all the parts of black histories: the kings, the goddesses, the warriors, the activists, community leaders, the people who galvanise others.’ 

Octavia Butler is ‘the mother’ of Afro-Futurism, according to Okojie, who describes her as ‘not just a writer but an incredible thinker... but it goes beyond her, reaching right back into the past when we think about black inventors. Why aren’t we taught about them in school, college or university?’ Black To The Future serves to disrupt the systems that keep these histories concealed. This should lead us, as Okojie hopes, to ‘a more egalitarian future for all of us, as those voices who struggle to be seen and to be heard deserve platforms’. Through writing woven through with world-bending magic, she allows her characters to move as one; as companions with the universe. This magic equals power, honouring lost voices and, for Okojie, ‘celebrating what’s possible’. 

Black To The Future, Edinburgh Futures Institute, run ended.