N.K. Jemisin and the unspoken politics of speculative fiction

Fantasy writer N.K. Jemisin joins Kurt Andersen in Studio 360 to talk about her new collection of short stories, “How Long ’til Black Future Month?” and her approach to writing speculative fiction.

Asked about the book’s title, Jemisin explains: “As African Americans, we’ve done lots of processing of our history, as we should, as we must. It’s necessary that we understand where we came from.”

But she adds, “It’s also necessary that we start thinking about where we’re going, and we need to look at the ways in which science fiction renders us or doesn’t render us, or leaves unspoken apocalypses all over the place in which something clearly happened to us, but no one mentions it. So I feel like it’s a good idea to engage with that, too.”