Probably my whole entire favorite thing about being a living, breathing human person is the ability to evolve — to grow both out of and into things. And so it’s thrilling to be a grown-ass woman and only just now discover a love for Marvel comics and characters and stories, but mostly "Black Panther" … and the Dora Milaje. Add that to what I have forever loved — good writing and writers, especially good black women writers — and suddenly, acclaimed sci-fi author Nnedi Okorafor is like a Marvel-ous patron saint leading me down the path of my evolutionary joy. This week Marvel announced that Okorafor will write a three-part comic series dedicated to the Dora Milaje, the all-female special forces team sworn to protect Wakanda in "Black Panther"— honestly, how could the world ask for anything better?

Her writing is the stuff of Afrofuturism, magical realism, ritual, and hyper-imaginative fantasy.

Since the Ryan Coogler-helmed film opened in February, and has consistently racked up unprecedented, banana-pants box office numbers, one thing you have likely heard over and over again is: Okoye should get her own storyline, her own movie, her own category of existence. Okoye, of course, is the leader of the Dora Milaje, played with an elegant rage and a near-messianic focus by Danai Gurira. So, she’ll be in this comic series. But there will also be Ayo (played by Florence Kasumba in the film), and Aneka, who is not in film at all. In the most recent comic book runs of "Black Panther," as written by Ta-Nehisi Coates and Roxane Gay, Ayo and Aneka are lovers. It’s unclear as to whether they will remain so in Okorafor’s retelling, but in an interview with Vogue, the award-winning novelist said: "Now you’re going to see the Dora Miljae for the first time as an independent entity; they’re not under the shadow of the throne." Works for me.

Okorafor, whose books include the novel, "The Book of Phoenix," the “Binti Trilogy," and a children’s book called "Chicken in the Kitchen," — all of which have won various awards — is a Nigerian-American writer and professor of creative writing and literature at the University of Buffalo, New York. Her writing is the stuff of Afrofuturism, magical realism, ritual, and hyper-imaginative fantasy. She writes for both adults and young people — her young adult series "The Akata Books," has characters named Sugar Cream and Sunny, and creates a world based on and told through Nsibidi, an ancient system of graphic communication native to the people of Nigeria. It’s a language made up of hundreds and hundreds of symbols that take the form of tattoos, writing in the air or on the ground. I mean, it sounds like something Okoye would not merely speak, but actually create from scratch. But that’ll be up to Okorafor, whose 2017 TED talk on "Sci-fi stories that imagine a future in Africa" is a total mood: "My science fiction has different ancestors — African ones," she says.

I’m excited for Okorafor’s Dora Milaje comic series, but I’m also excited by the way she describes anticipating the solar eclipse from a forest preserve in rural Illinois last summer: "It had rained in the morning and I hadn’t slept well because I was worried it would be too cloudy. I didn’t want to look at other people’s photos; I wanted to see this slow dance of heavenly bodies with my own eyes." Okorafor grew up in Illinois, and in high school, she was a track and tennis star. She also had aspirations to become an entomologist, because she loved insects, math, and science. Oh hi, Black Girl Magic.

At 13, she was diagnosed with scoliosis, which got worse as she got older, and then complications during spinal surgery at 19 resulted in paralysis from the waist down. Okorafor regained her ability to walk, but wouldn’t be able to run or play tennis again. So she took a creative writing class. I know we talk a lot about the resilience of black folks, and black women in particular, but gahtdamb, I am so here for the black and beautiful resilience and literary genius of Nnedi Okorafor paired with the searing strength and significance of the Dora Milaje.

Rebecca Carroll is editor of special projects at WNYC New York Public Radio, and a critic at large for the Los Angeles Times. Her column "Black Is Beautiful" is a weekly look at the style, beauty, culture, or fashion that centers, elevates, and celebrates blackness.

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