Nnedi Okorafor says that growing up she was told that the future career choices for her were: doctor, engineer, lawyer - anything else would be a failure.
Okorafor was a skilled tennis player and track and field athlete in his teens, but a scoliosis operation put an end to sports.
- I was temporarily paralyzed, an unusual complication.
If you take an athletic person, paralyze them and put them in a hospital bed without knowing if they will be able to walk again - that does something to you.
That was "my moment," she says.
She started writing down stories already in the hospital and later became one of the greatest of the fantasy/science fiction genre.
Among her was apparently Neil Gaiman, who, among other things, is behind "Sandman" and before his death Ursula K LeGuin also expressed her admiration for Okorafor.
Working with the GOT writer
Right now, she is developing a television series of her novel "Who Fears Death" together with Game of Thrones author George RR Martin, but it was not obvious that it would be fantasy and sci-fi that she would devote herself to.
- I see the world as a magical place, but the sci-fi bit came later.
It didn't happen because I read other sci-fi novels, they felt white, male and cold, she says.
Current Sweden
Okorafor eventually coined the term "Africanfuturism" to describe his writing - a subgenre of science fiction with a strong connection to the African continent.
Nnedi Okorafor was born and raised in the United States, but her parents are from Nigeria and the country serves as a muse for the author.
The genre should not be confused with Afrofuturism, which is mainly about black people from the United States.
In mid-September came the third part of her "Binti" suite in Swedish.
The books follow Binti, who leaves her home village to attend a technological university on another planet.
See the interview with Nnedi Okorafor in the clip.