Suyi Davies Okungbowa is an award-winning fantasy, science fiction and tie-in author. His works include Son of the Storm and the award winning Godhunter. He has also written tie-in books such as Stranger Things: Lucas on the Line and Minecraft: The Haven Trials. We caught up with him to find out more about his recent book, Black Panther: The Intergalactic Empire of Wakanda.
What’s the elevator pitch for Black Panther: The Intergalactic Empire of Wakanda?
Take a few misguided individuals from the most technologically advanced nation on earth. Shoot them into space, where their plans go awry and they’re forced to survive by starting a new colony that quickly turns into an intergalactic empire spanning various planets. Then, take a man – no, a legend, from the old world – who does not remember his own name, but whose coming awakens rumors of a saviour who will liberate all under the empire’s brutal rule. Slot that man into the rebellion. Put this in a blender. Mix.
Why should I read this book?
Why shouldn’t you? It’s the Ur-story, isn’t it? A legend, a prophecy, an oppressed social underclass under brutal rule. A promise of liberation via hard-fought wins. But there are two caveats. One is that every powerful institution, however benevolent its roots, possesses the same capacity for brutality and oppression – power corrupts, after all. And two, colonisation can happen anytime, anywhere, and by anyone. Wakanda may be an analogue for imagined possibilities for Afrodescendant peoples in our real world’s history beyond the suppression, minoritisation and marginalisation they have long suffered. But with power comes responsibility – wield it unwisely, and it could just as easily turn one into an oppressor.
What was exciting about writing a prose adaptation of an existing work?
Ta-Nehisi, for one. I could see how much thought he’d put into the work, the roots, drawing from both African and African-American history to build this larger-than-life intergalactic world. And of course, writing the interstices, the stories between the adaptations – it’s like threading a bracelet, see. What needs to happen here to take us from this point to that? It’s more than just filling in the gaps. It’s being in constant conversation with the writers, artists, worlds, lore, and characters that have come before you.
What advantage does prose have over sequential art?
I don’t know about advantages per se. I like to think each form offers opportunities the other does not – the question is how we make use of them. Working with prose as the sole medium offers, for instance, opportunities to communicate on multiple fronts. A carefully chosen turn of phrase, syntax, punctuation, for instance, may offer information, tone, history, emotion, etc, all at once. Literature can cut across time and space within the frame of a few words in a way still images can’t. However, I still learned a lot from looking at the images and digging deep, wondering: What are they thinking? How do they feel? And then seeking the words to capture that.
If you could sit one of the characters from the books down and have a word with them, who would it be and what would you say?
I liked spending time with Nakia. She’d once been a subject of the intergalactic empire – a perpetrator of its brutality, even – before switching over to the rebellion. Characters who switch allegiances interest me, because it means deconstruction (or propaganda, even) has been successful on some level. I’d like to ask: What was the moment you realised you couldn’t be this person anymore? How hard was it to leave behind everything you knew and loved and commit to something nebulous and potentially doomed?
Which character was the most fun or interesting to write?
That’ll be shared between Bast, Captain N’Yami and Emperor N’Jadaka. The amphibious Teku-Maza, in general, were the most interesting to write about, and N’Yami being the most prominent of them gave me some time to think about how they perceive themselves. Then, the uphill task of portraying the brutal emperor N’Jadaka as a gentle, family man – tyrants contain multitudes; who knew? And then, Bast as a brash and prideful goddess, forcing us to question the expected wisdom of gods. I enjoyed making a seemingly all-powerful deity squirm, asking the reader to reckon with the fallibility of gods.
What invention or special ability from the book would you want to have in the real world?
Teleportation. It’s dangerous, actually, for the human – you disintegrate someplace and re-form someplace else. One has to wonder if it’s the same person on the other side. In the book, the Manifold teleports relentlessly, as transport, as weapon. For the savings on transport alone, I’d love to have that, consequences be damned.
What’s the toughest part of the writing process for you?
Locking down the tone and voice of the work. Sometimes, it’s part of what first arrives, when the rest of the work is still being formed in the mind. Other times, you’ve gotta work at it. It’s the latter that’s hard, you know? Pinning down how you want the work to sound when you haven’t yet figured out the shape of the work itself. But we get there somehow, whatever the route. I sure did with this book, however circuitous the path.
What other projects would you like to work on?
Star Wars, probably. Huge fan of Andor and the Mandalorian lore. I could totally see myself working in that world.
Black Panther: The Intergalactic Empire of Wakanda Is out now.
