Akata Warrior: 03/09/20

Akata Warrior by Nnedi Okorafor is the sequel to Akata Witch. It's been a year since American born Sunny Nwazue was inducted into the Leopard Society. Now she is being called into action to save the world from apocalypse.

Sunny teams up with her Leopard Society friends, Orlu, Chichi, and Sasha to go on a road trip that starts conventionally and ends supernaturally. They must travel across the country and across worlds.

Where the first book was confined within the bounds of Sunny's new town and her immediate neighborhood, this one expands outwards and westward. The magic Sunny is learning to harness alongside her friends is re-contextualized against the greater Nigerian landscape.

Okorafor has taken the road narrative conventions and reapplied them to draw the reader into a tale that is recognizable and serves as a gateway into Nigerian culture and folklore.

In terms of the road narrative spectrum, Sunny and her friends are scarecrows (99) — meaning protectors. Their entire journey is based around protecting their home, their country, their world. Their final destination is Osisi, a town that resides in another dimension, or on the other side, a spirit realm. As such it is a utopia, or no place, (FF). The route they take is a combination of highway and offroad, with the final route being the offroad one (66). Thus it's the tale of scarecrows going to utopia via an offroad route (99FF66).

Five stars

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