Excerpt from Noor by Nnedi Okorafor, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

Abuja was slower, lazier, yes. It's only a few hours' drive from the Red Eye, but a few hours' drive is a long drive when you are just trying to live your life. Despite its relative closeness to the abomination in the north, Abuja was a thriving city that rivaled the fast- paced, clean innovative ones in the south like Lagos, Owerri and New Calabar. And in Abuja, men were less likely to run over a woman like me crossing the street.

Today, I could make it to the market and back before work. I drove, as I always did, and I went to my favorite market, the one that was about a mile away. I knew where everything was. Finding all the ingredients I needed would be easy. They knew me there, too. Or so I thought.

It actually was a really warm morning. So my dream was right about that, at least. It was also right about the refreshing breeze. I wore no make‑up. No earrings. I'd braided my shoulder-length dreadlocks to cover the silver nodule that was the tip of my neural implants. Weeks ago, I'd even dyed my dreadlocks jet-black, so no one questioned how "clean" they were (for some reason, people always thought brown dread­locks were dirty). And for extra cover, I wore a rose-colored veil over my head. I wore a light but long sleeved green silk top. My skirt was thick, covering my ankles and part of my feet, so neither my legs nor my arms were in view. They shouldn't have caused any trouble.

Granted, by definition, to many Nigerians, I was trouble. Even in Abuja, though it wasn't as rabid as in the south, I was a demon. A witch. An abomination. Priests, reverends, bishops, pastors and imams, holy men all over West Africa said so. To replace an organ or two with cybernetic, 3D-printed, non-human parts was fine. People needed pacemakers, new limbs, skin grafts, etc. But if you were one of those people who seemed to be "more machine than human" for whatever reason, one of those who "refused to obey the laws of nature and die," you were a demon. I'd seen people like me fall victim to jungle justice in viral videos, murdered (or "shut down" as people liked to joke), attacked in the streets and, in less extreme cases, shunned. We were supposed to die; what we were doing instead of dying wasn't living.

Then there are those who clump all of us into the same group. And when you do that, we all became "those Africans so deeply affected by twisted western ideologies that we're obsessed with perfection and what money can buy." We are cultureless children of the filthy rich corrupt elite class that has nothing better to do but augment our bodies with bullshit just because we can. We aren't real Africans, we are the bootlickers of the United States, China, or the Emirates.

People here in Abuja have thought I was the daughter of an energy tycoon or the mistress of an Ultimate Corp exec simply because of what I am. Me. As if. I just wanted to live my life. As I was. As what I chose. As what I was. I was born and raised in Lagos, like 90 million other people. It's not too much to ask.

Anyway, as I said, most of the men and women in this market knew me. This was how I'd learned to live over the years. When you are someone like me, one who is always fighting for herself, against oppression, hate, misunderstanding, fear, you move about the world with care. You seek out those places where people will accept you and you nest there.

Why would I want to force my way into a place that hates me? I don't have time or energy for that. When I moved here with Olaniyi, I tasted the environment. Once I decided it was okay, I gradually let myself come to know this part of Abuja and it came to know me. In this market, for over two years, I'd fixed their cars, repaired their phones, brought people relief, made people happy. I thought they understood me. As I thought Olaniyi had. Foolish.

I had a basket and a synth-fiber bag with me. I bought semi-ripe plantain from a man who'd just carried in and set down a bunch in his booth. He was happy to sell to me. He'd laughed after we negotiated the price, saying that I was both fair and a cheat. "I am impressed," he said. "And I'm glad there is only one like you." He had his mobile phone stuck to one of those charge belts and it was showing the days' news. I remember what was on because the man's phone was the size of a book, the volume was high enough for everyone in the cluster of stalls to hear, and the anchorwoman had those thick and braided eyebrows that only people in front of cameras had the nerve to have.

Excerpted from Noor by Nnedi Okorafor. Copyright © 2021 by Nnedi Okorafor. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.