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Book

RIGHT now, the world feels like it is on the brink. The news is punishing, and cabin fever for those in lockdown is starting to set in. Will we all be OK? How long will it last? What will be left?

The City We Became provides a desperately needed escape. It is the first part of a new trilogy by N. K. Jemisin, who has won science fiction鈥檚 much-coveted Hugo Award three times.

The novel is a love letter to New York, written about people of colour living in the city. It is about ethnicity, but it just happens to be about otherworldly beings too.

When an alien invader that is hell-bent on destroying New York arrives on the scene, the city鈥檚 five boroughs are brought to life to combat the threat. Manhattan becomes Manny, who has a vague and mysterious past, while the father of Staten Island鈥檚 avatar, the sole white protagonist, is a racist cop. Brooklyn is represented by a cool former hip-hop pioneer, the Bronx has hard-edged arts centre director Broca and Queens is transformed into a super-intelligent south Asian postgraduate student.

Jemisin鈥檚 New York feels true and lived in. To read the book is to be swept away in a world that looks much like our own. Jemisin has lived in the city on and off for most of her life, settling there 13 years ago, and a lot of research has gone into making its details accurate.

鈥淚 would note down the smells, the sounds, the feelings, the thoughts, the details. How cold is it? What is the name of the ferry to Staten Island?鈥� Jemisin tells me. For many people, it will be hard to read her descriptions without longing for the normality of urban life, while our governments tell us to stay indoors.

While The City We Became is written by someone who clearly adores New York, Jemisin is clear-eyed in her criticisms of life in the West. 鈥淚t鈥檚 like going from the honeymoon phase to the comfort you get from a long-term relationship 鈥� you don鈥檛 bother closing the bathroom door any more,鈥� she says.

鈥�The City We Became is literally and metaphorically about the fight for the soul of New York鈥�

In one scene, two characters who have just met and who are both people of colour take it for granted that a white woman would be anxious about their presence. It is only when this is made overt that they realise that she is an alien and their foe.

鈥淔iction writers are only trying to tell good stories,鈥� says Jemisin. 鈥淏ut we are sending messages in our fiction. It is always political. Politics is stories.鈥� The City We Became is literally and metaphorically about the fight for the soul of New York, but it is also concerned with the souls of cities everywhere. 鈥淐ities change, that鈥檚 unavoidable. But when it becomes no longer liveable for regular people and you start to lose the little unique bits that made these cities so interesting, that鈥檚 a threat,鈥� she says.

In the book, none of the anthropomorphised boroughs realise who or what they are initially. They hear the voices of thousands of people in their heads and struggle to come to terms with the stakes at play.

Jemisin鈥檚 wider point seems to be that a city lives in each of us, and each of us makes a city. We all have a responsibility to contribute to our surroundings. This book is just one way of Jemisin doing her part.