The Shadow Speaker is a young adult, first-person novel by Nigerian-American writer Nnedi Okorafor, which takes place in the year 2070. It was a Booksense Pick for Winter 2007/2008, a Tiptree Honor Book, a finalist for the Essence Magazine Literary Award, the Andre Norton Award and the Golden Duck Award and an NAACP Image Award nominee. A deluxe revised edition of the novel, which was previously out of print, was published by DAW Books in 2023 under the title Shadow Speaker. It was followed by a sequel; Like Thunder.

Plot

Ejimafor "Ejii" Ugabe is a fourteen-year-old Muslim half-Wodaabe, half-Igbo girl. She lives in the Nigerian village of Kwàmfa. Her father was once the hated dictator-like chief. She lives in the year 2070. The whole world is falling apart due to nuclear fallout in “the early twenty-first century”.

Characters

Notable places

Notable events

Religion

The author uses many references to religion. She uses the Many Minor Signs of the Apocalypse said in the Quran, such as guns not being available and a green haze that smells like flowers, among others.