N.K Jemisin is Changing the Fantasy Landscape

When people ask me who my favourite fantasy writer is, I proudly respond with N.K. Jemisin. Since I found her book “The Fifth Season” in 2016, I quickly fell in love with her writing style and her blatant disregard for the rules of writing (who says you can’t write 2nd person narration well?).

This strong American writer has been breaking barriers and records throughout her career for both women and BIPOC everywhere. If you research her now, you will find a respected author with raving reviews, and many deserved awards. However, we must talk about how any of this came to fruition.

Born and raised in the United States, Nora Keita Jemisin earned a degree in Psychology and moved on to pursue a career in counseling. Beginning with writing on the side, she dabbles in various styles of texts including novels, novellas, novelettes, and short stories. She continues to utilize her educational background within her work, as she frequently explores topics of oppression and cultural conflict, often in fantastical ways.

Searching Jemisin’s backlist, you will find her debut publication of “The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms” in 2010, which is the first book in her “Inheritance Trilogy”. However, this series was actually the second work that she attempted to have published.

Her first novel, “The Killing Moon” was repeatedly rejected by publishers, “on the assumption that only black people would ever possibly want to read the work of a black writer”, Jemisin recollected during her third Hugo Award acceptance speech in 2018.

It wasn’t until she wrote her second series, which included a wide range of white characters (even though they were all terrible people), that convinced publishers to take a chance on her work. “The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms” went on to earn her the Locus Award for best debut novel. After the success of this series, “The Dreamblood Duology” was then published with “The Killing Moon” being the first installment.

Probably her most widely known work is her third published fantasy series, “The Broken Earth Trilogy”. This series earned her the Best Novel Hugo Award three consecutive years in a row between 2016-2018 for each contribution in the trilogy.

I could personally gush about this series for hours, but I will allow her historic accomplishments to do the talking. She is the first writer in history to achieve a three-year sweep of the Hugo’s, as well as the first writer to win top honors for every installment in a series. On top of this, the third book in the series, “The Stone Sky” also won the Nebula Award, making her accomplishments even more historic.

If this isn’t enough to convince you of how much of a bada** she is, her award speech definitely will. Upon accepting her third Hugo Award she had a strong message for the doubters she encountered (and no doubt still encounters) over the course of her life and career. She said in her speech,

“...But this is the year in which I get to smile at all of those naysayers—every single mediocre insecure wannabe who fixes their mouth to suggest that I do not belong on this stage, that people like me cannot possibly have earned such an honor, that when they win it it’s meritocracy but when we win it it’s “identity politics” — I get to smile at those people, and lift a massive, shining, rocket-shaped middle finger in their direction.”

Since her triumph with “Broken Earth”, she has published “The City We Became”, the first installment in her evolving “Great Cities Series”. No doubt, we can continue to expect great things from this decorated and influential writer.

N.K Jemisin will continue to be my favourite writer because of the way she has mastered the art of crafting language into a beautiful poetic form that I truly adore. This, on top of exploring difficult topics in fantasy settings, will keep me running to Indigo whenever another book of hers is published (I am a sucker for hard copy after all). I am especially inspired by her strength to continue unapologetically pursuing her dreams in the face of discrimination. Considering everything she continues to achieve, she has most certainly proved those naysayers wrong, and I am cheering for her every step of the way.