Yoruba Orishas in the Parable Series and Who Fears Death: How Octavia E. Butler and Nnedi Okorafor Represented the Deities

The purpose of this paper is to investigate how the Yoruba orishas are represented in the literary works of Afrofuturism: Octavia E. Butler’s Parable series and Nnedi Okorafor’s Who Fears Death. This paper will especially look at how their heroines, Olamina and Onyesonwu, represent Oya and Eshu-Elegba. Butler is first found to represent Oya in “God is Change” in Earthseed , the bible in the Acorn community. Then, Olamina herself is linked to Oya with her “ability to change,” life surrounded by “wind, fire and death,” and “share” in the Parable series. Okorafor represents Eshu-Elegba in her “Trickster-like” image. Eshu-Elegba is also represented by Onyesonwu’s abilities of “Eshu”: shape-shifting, traveling to the wilderness, and bringing the dead back to life in Who Fears Death. There are several points in common between the Parable series and Who Fears Death because of Butler’s influence on Okorafor. However, Okorafor is found to depict Onyesonwu’s abilities as “real” with her mystic power, in comparison to Butler. This realization method could be seen more if their literary works were compared.