Meet the 'Geniuses'

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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC, and there are geniuses among us. The 2020 MacArthur Fellows were named a couple of weeks ago. That's the official designation of this group of "exceptionally creative individuals," as they say, but they are better known as MacArthur Genius Grants. Our listening area is home to quite a few of them, as it turns out. All this week on the Brian Lehrer show, we have lined up a genius a day to end the show with, five newly minted Genius prize winners.

One to end the show with each day this week, beginning right now with N K Jemisin of Brooklyn, who was honored to "what the MacArthur Foundation had to say" for "pushing against the conventions of epic fantasy and science fiction genres while exploring deeply human questions about structural racism, environmental crises, and familial relationships."

In her most recent novel, The City We Became, the boroughs of New York City are each embodied in a person. Five people representing the diversity and politics of their homes who have to fight off a kind of across the multi-verse threat of annihilation that manages to incorporate gentrification, and something that we might say is like the proud boys.

The name of her 2018 short story collection tells us a lot about her approach to fantasy and science fiction. It's titled How Long 'til Black Future Month? Welcome, N K Jamisin, thanks for coming on and sharing your genius. Welcome to WNYC.

N K Jemisin: Thanks for having me.

Brian: I'll tell folks you use your initials NK for writing, but your first name is actually Nora which I gather you're using conversation. You want to tell people why your initials for your writing?

N K: Just when I first started writing or starting to get published in the '90s, the use of initials was a good way to actually separate my real name from my writing name. That was back before Google and natural language processing. N K worked because it was what my mom used to call me when I was in trouble. I would respond to it, but not quite to the same degree that I would to my name.

Brian: Well, you are now the opposite of in trouble, congratulations. As a writer of fantasy, had you ever imagine winning a Genius award for that?

N K: It was a pie in the sky kind of thing. Sure, maybe one day because Octavia Butler, famously within our genre one one back in the, I want to say the late '80s for her work as a science fiction writer. Of course, every science fiction and fantasy writer has this vague dream of getting that kind of success, but we don't usually expect it. I was super surprised.

Brian: You imagine New Yorkers having to join forces and do battle to protect their city for your latest novel, The City We Became. It came out at the end of March, just as the pandemic was raging here. I don't know what that did to your book tour, but I suspect a lot of people read that book to help them imagine winning this struggle. Have you been hearing that?

N K: Yes. I was honestly expecting the book to tank because coming out in the middle of the pandemic, I figured people would be more worried about other things than reading books. Yes, we have seen some slumps in the book industry in a lot of ways and a lot of struggles just to get books to people. There was a period there for a while where Amazon was deprioritizing books in favor of making sure people had other things, which makes sense.

A lot of book sellers, especially indie booksellers, Brick and Mortar had to go curbside pickup. Then as people started to read the book, as the reviews came out, it became clear that people were actually seeing some resonance with the pandemic at it. That, I was not expecting because there's a metaphor in the book for the viral encroachment of things like gentrification, and it works really well as a metaphor for a virus too.

Brian: I guess. Now, you said in your video for the MacArthur website, that you're writing stories that you wish someone had written for you when you were younger. What was missing?

N K: A couple of things. One, the presence of people who looked like me. Science fiction and fantasy prides itself on being very future forward but in a lot of those futures, you saw mostly straight white male characters and kind of nobody else. That suggested we weren't there in the future and I didn't really like that or in the past, in the case of fantasy novels. A lot of them were set in this mythic past where I guess we were the myths, so that was a little uncomfortable.

The other piece of it was that was missing was really just realistic engagement with the way that the world is. Yes, you're writing fantasy. That doesn't mean that you need to make up a different behavior for humanity or a different way of interacting with the world for humanity. Humanities should still exist with all its warts and all its complexity and all of its diversity. I wanted to see all of that for good or for ill but to me, that makes the fantasy go down easier if the people are real.

Brian: Given that once you managed to get published, you went on to win three Hugo Awards in a row. For people who don't know, I think we can call that the Oscar of science fiction and fantasy. Have things changed enough that younger versions of yourself wouldn't face those extra challenges in imagining and finding a publisher even?

N K: There's still some difficulty in the industry. Systemic racism takes a while to go away. We don't know how long because it hasn't happened. I have heard from younger up and coming writers that they've been able to engage completely with subject matter that they might have hesitated to touch 10, 20 years ago because now, it's possible to speak openly about things like race and gender and other marginalizations.

As for whether it's easier for them to break in, it's a two-edged thing. I am seeing a lot more writers of color coming in and being able to tell their own stories, which is wonderful. At the same time, I'm hearing a few stories of young Black writers being told, "Write like in N K Jemisin," and that makes me squinch. That makes me just cringe. [crosstalk]

Brian: A lot of people are happy that you write like N K Jemisin, so congratulations again on your MacArthur Fellowship, your Genius award. N K Jamisin's latest novel is The City We Became set right here in the five boroughs of New York. Thank you for joining us today.

N K: Thank you.

 

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