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One Way Witch
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Overview
Set in the universe Africanfuturist luminary Nnedi Okorafor first introduced in the World Fantasy Award-winning Who Fears Death, One Way Witch is the second in the She Who Knows trilogy The world has forgotten Onyesonwu. As a teen, Najeeba learned to become the beast of wind, fire and dust: the kponyungo. When that took too much from her, including the life of her father, she let it all go, and for a time, she was happy -- until only a few years later, when the small, normal life she'd built was violently destroyed. Now in her forties and years beyond the death of her second husband, Najeeba has just lost her beloved daughter. Onyesonwu saved the world. Najeeba knows this well, but the world does not. This is how the juju her daughter evoked works. One other person who remembers is Onyesonwu's teacher Aro, a harsh and hard-headed sorcerer. Najeeba has decided to ask him to teach her the Mystic Points, the powerful heart of sorcery. There is something awful Najeeba needs to kill and the Mystic Points are the only way. Najeeba is truly her daughter's mother. When Aro agrees to help, Najeeba is at last ready to forge her future. But first, she must confront her past -- for certain memories cannot lie in unmarked graves.
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Details
- ISBN-13: 9780756418977
- ISBN-10: 0756418976
- Publisher: Daw Books
- Publish Date: April 2025
- Dimensions: 7.1 x 4.9 x 1.1 inches
- Shipping Weight: 0.55 pounds
- Page Count: 240
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- 1
Najeeba, powerful witch and mother to the revolutionary Onyesonwu (the protagonist of author Nnedi Okorafor’s World Fantasy Award-winning Who Fears Death), continues her journey in the second installation of the She Who Knows trilogy. In the first novel, Najeeba relayed her past: her childhood as a salt miner and seller; her discovery of her spirit form, the fire lizard kponyungo; her survival after the massacre of her village and the brutal rape that resulted in her daughter, Onyesonwu. In One Way Witch, we meet Najeeba in her 40s, as she trains with the sorcerer Aro to fulfill her potential as a witch and processes the aftermath of Onyesonwu’s death.
With her final act, Onyesonwu changed the world and magically rewrote history: Genocide once plagued the Seven Rivers Kingdom and surrounding lands, with the Nurus enslaving and slaughtering the darker-skinned Okekes, but peace now reigns, blissful and—to Najeeba, at least—disorienting. As one of the few people who remembers the violence of the Before, Najeeba must grieve her beloved daughter and navigate living in a separate reality from everyone else in her village while fighting the dark forces that remain active despite Onyesonwu’s achievements.
As always, Okorafor’s prose is simple in execution but expansive and authoritative in the ideas it relays. Najeeba is a stubborn, self-possessed protagonist who is curious but acts with the wisdom of lived experiences. And Okorafor has crafted a surrounding network of characters who are a delight to revisit over multiple books, and are especially compelling for their constant evolution. Teachers become students, belief systems falter and disintegrate, enemies return for absolution, old hearts find new love. It is definitely recommended to read the prior books in the series before One Way Witch, beginning with Who Fears Death. But for devoted fans, One Way Witch is another Okorafor classic, a statement on politics, gender and history delivered as an unputdownable read.
Najeeba, powerful witch and mother to the revolutionary Onyesonwu (the protagonist of author Nnedi Okorafor’s World Fantasy Award-winning Who Fears Death), continues her journey in the second installation of the She Who Knows trilogy. In the first novel, Najeeba relayed her past: her childhood as a salt miner and seller; her discovery of her spirit form, the fire lizard kponyungo; her survival after the massacre of her village and the brutal rape that resulted in her daughter, Onyesonwu. In One Way Witch, we meet Najeeba in her 40s, as she trains with the sorcerer Aro to fulfill her potential as a witch and processes the aftermath of Onyesonwu’s death.
With her final act, Onyesonwu changed the world and magically rewrote history: Genocide once plagued the Seven Rivers Kingdom and surrounding lands, with the Nurus enslaving and slaughtering the darker-skinned Okekes, but peace now reigns, blissful and—to Najeeba, at least—disorienting. As one of the few people who remembers the violence of the Before, Najeeba must grieve her beloved daughter and navigate living in a separate reality from everyone else in her village while fighting the dark forces that remain active despite Onyesonwu’s achievements.
As always, Okorafor’s prose is simple in execution but expansive and authoritative in the ideas it relays. Najeeba is a stubborn, self-possessed protagonist who is curious but acts with the wisdom of lived experiences. And Okorafor has crafted a surrounding network of characters who are a delight to revisit over multiple books, and are especially compelling for their constant evolution. Teachers become students, belief systems falter and disintegrate, enemies return for absolution, old hearts find new love. It is definitely recommended to read the prior books in the series before One Way Witch, beginning with Who Fears Death. But for devoted fans, One Way Witch is another Okorafor classic, a statement on politics, gender and history delivered as an unputdownable read.