Nnedi Okorafor coined the term Africanfuturism to describe what she writes and to distinguish it from Afrofuturism: science fiction rooted directly in African cultures, histories and cosmologies, centred on the continent rather than the diaspora, and not written with the West as its default reference point. The Binti novellas, which begin with a Himba girl leaving Earth for a galactic university with her hair coated in otjize clay, won both the Hugo and the Nebula. Who Fears Death, set in a post-apocalyptic Sudan and confronting weaponized rape and genocide, won the World Fantasy Award. Lagoon drops first contact into Lagos. The Akata Witch series follows an albino Nigerian-American girl discovering a hidden magical society. Born in Cincinnati to Igbo parents who had come to the United States to study and could not return during the Biafran war, Okorafor was paralysed at nineteen by complications from surgery for scoliosis and began writing during the recovery. She has written Black Panther, Shuri and Wakanda Forever for Marvel, and holds a doctorate in English.