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Wole Talabi
| Fan | |
|---|---|
| Name: | Oluwole Talabi |
| Alias(es): | Wole Talabi |
| Type: | |
| Fandoms: | Science fiction, Africanfuturism |
| Communities: | |
| Other: | |
| URL: | personal website/blog |
| Click here for related articles on Fanlore. | |
Oluwole ("Wole") Talabi (born 28 February 1986)[1] is a Nigerian science fiction writer, engineer, and editor.
Background
Raised in Warri, southern Nigeria[1], he has travelled to many countries[2] and has recently lived in Malaysia[3], Mexico [4] and Australia.[5] In 2023, he married Rocío Vizuete Fernández in Spain, and the wedding was attended by guests from 25 countries.[6] Such travels and experiences have exposed him to many cultures and perspectives which possibly reflect one outlook in his work:
There is so much more me than there was before.From “When We Dream We Are Our God”, Wole Talabi[7]
His writings explore issues ranging from transhumanism versus the Turing Test[8] to 'God's Eye' nanomachines.[9] His bibliography includes novels, anthologies, collections, and many short stories. He has been nominated or shoertlisted or recipient of the Hugo Award, the Caine Prize for African Writing, and the Nommo Awards from the African Speculative Fiction Society.[1]
He sees himself as having been a science fiction enthusiast and writer for most of his life:
Yes. Even before I was writing. These are the kinds of discussions I used to have with my dad, with my friends. I used to read a lot of this kind of science fiction — Asimov, Clarke, Philip K. Dick...Me and my Dad used to talk about how the history of technology is the history of humanity in many ways. Because unfortunately the moment we come out with a new technology, the next thing is ‘How do we use it to oppress other people?’ And there’s a war, and there’s a struggle. And out of that there’s a new equilibrium that arises until there’s another technological shift and then everything resets.[4]
In June 2024, Wole appeared at the Supanova Con in Perth, Australia.
Afrofuturism
In October 2020, Wole edited Africanfuturism: An Anthology which was published by Brittle Paper, and which is Available for free download.
One value of an anthology such as this is that it challenges the unfortunate tendency to view “African SF” as somehow monolithic; the cultural and even linguistic differences among the tales remind us (or perhaps begin to teach us) that SF from Zimbabwe or Nigeria isn’t the same thing as SF from Botswana or Uganda or Senegal.[10]
The anthology is a host to a range of wonders and imaginative worlds... I think it’s important that all serious fans of science fiction are conscious of the emerging talent in African science fiction.[11]
He explains why local forms of science fiction should be seen as vital for Africa:
Today, Africa is considered to be technologically underdeveloped. We consume technology from other parts of the world, of course, but how many original, paradigm-shifting scientific and technological ideas originate from the African continent? Not many. One could get into a lot of historical, political and sociological back and forth about why that is, but in the end what matters is – it is.So what can we do about it? A lot. For example: we can try to increase literacy and improve the quality of education on the continent (there are already several initiatives such as the Literate Africa Project and UNESCO’s efforts), we can demand better governance from our leaders, and we can inspire the coming generations to aspire to a better Africa than we currently have. That last point is where I believe African science fiction can and should contribute significantly...
... Africans already seem to know the importance of science fiction. When asked if they believe science fiction is useful to people in STEMM careers, 84 percent of all respondents, including those who said they had never read science fiction before and were never influenced by it, answered “yes.” When responses were restricted to only those currently living in Africa right now, it was even higher at 92 percent. And when they were restricted to only those who read science fiction as children, or who read science fiction now, that percentage spiked to a solid 100 percent. This from people across a fairly broad range of STEMM careers...
The problem may be, as I stated earlier, that we predominantly consume western iterations of the genre without thought of our own. This is something that author Tade Thompson touches on in the Q and A session between AfroSF contributors and students of Maria Barraza’s World Literature 202 class at Simon Fraser University when he says “Our folk tales, our proverbs, our art, our culture, all of it has science fictional elements. We have just been trained to only see a certain kind of science fiction which is mainly of Western origin.” Dilman Dila’s story "How My Father Became a God in Terra Incognita" is an modern example of this kind of science fiction reclamation and creation.[12]
His challenge has been taken up by some Africans who run the Applied African Speculative Fiction Project to build educational infrastructure advancing science fiction, futurism, STEMM and related educational opportunities. This is a pragmatic form of Africanfuturism and its lessons could arguably be applied in communities around the world.
References
- ^ Jump up to: a b c Wole Talabi, Wikipedia
- ^ Wole Talabi, Travel Diary, personal blog
- ^ Wole Talabi, African Literary & Speculative Agency
- ^ Jump up to: a b Geoff Ryman, Wole Talabi, Strange Horizons, 7 April 2025
- ^ About Wole, personal blog
- ^ Kuhelika Ghosh, Nigerian Speculative Fiction Author Wole Talabi Ties the Knot in Beautiful Summer Wedding, Brittle Paper, 25 August 2023
- ^ cited in Geoff Ryman, as above
- ^ Any Brady, Exploring Black Sci-Fi, Learning through Color, the Cost of Cooling, and Other New Books, Scientific American, 1 July 2021
- ^ God's Eye, African Literary & Speculative Agency
- ^ Gary K. Wolfe, Review: Africanfuturism: An Anthology, Edited by Wole Talabi, Locus, 15 February 2021.
- ^ Alexander Buckley, Africanfuturism: An Anthology, Vector, British Science Fiction Association, 24 August 2021.
- ^ Wole Talabi, "Why Africa Needs To Create More Science Fiction", Omenana: African Speculative Fiction Magazine, 25 March 2015