In the exciting coming-of-age novella She Who Knows by Nnedi Okorafor (Binti: Home), young Najeeba refuses to follow the rules laid down for women in her desert community. The Osu-nu people are considered untouchables, and they survive by sending members on a yearly pilgrimage to a dead lake, where they gather salt to sell in the markets. Women are not allowed, but when Najeeba receives the call to go, she becomes a catalyst for change.
Najeeba is charmingly impulsive, making seemingly rash decisions that drive the otherwise quiet plot. She hides her face under a veil and forcibly takes the lead on selling her family's salt at the market, although their society forbids women from being there. She's empowered by her success, but her family is horrified; this strains the strong bond she once had with them. As the conflict grows between her desire for greater freedom and her family's aversion to violating the gender norms they have always followed, the stakes of her actions mount ever higher.
Okorafor builds her postapocalyptic world from an assemblage of technology, magic, and folklore, and gradually reveals tantalizing pieces of its history and how it came to be. The dead lake makes for a particularly striking backdrop--a lifeless but strangely beautiful expanse of salt. Okorafor's vivid and appealing descriptions of food, like the "large pan of sizzling chopped tomatoes, olive oil, smoke aku, sauteed onions, curry, smoked mushrooms, and chili peppers" establish a fully realized setting. Propelled by the magical experiences that draw Najeeba toward her destiny, She Who Knows is a satisfying adventure for lovers of fantasy and female rebellion. --Carol Caley, writer