[MUSIC PLAYING] It's no secret that the world begs for diverse books, books that reflect our diverse existence, books that are inclusive and offer characters of various colors, sexualities, and abilities, who aren't one-dimensional token.

Books that inspire our imaginations, because they create new worlds that we might all live in together with equity, and offer an opportunity for readers to discuss how we might get there, and soon.

And for many fans of Afrofuturism, these books have not only offered literary entertainment, but they have been transformative in shaping black identities.

Afrofuturism, the genre at the intersection of black culture, technology, liberation, and the imagination, as Ytasha Womack defines it, was coined in 1993 by Mark Dery in his groundbreaking essay, "Black to the Future."

While the term Afrofuturism wasn't used until the '90s, the idea of it has historical precedence from the little-known story "The Comet" by WEB Du Bois, to the cosmic creations of Sun Ra.

But it's the treasure trove of literature, from authors like Samuel Delany to Nalo Hopkinson, novels like "Invisible Man" to "The Fifth Season," that remind us of why Afrofuturism stands alone as a truly inventive mode of artistic expression.

Novels that imagine black liberation by transposing historical realities with future possibilities prove to not only be inspirational but necessary for an alienated population building a cultural narrative that is not hinged on victimization and oppression.

DOMINIQUE TAYLOR (VOICEOVER): And no conversation about Afrofuturism is complete or even started, really, without exploring the pioneering contributions of Octavia Butler, an author who embodied the principles of Afrofuturism by not just creating new worlds, but showing us the ways to unlearn old ones.

From "Kindred" to "Earthseed," Butler gave us black female protagonists.

She gave us an accurate roadmap to the future we're currently living in.

And she once said that, even though her stories were marked by pessimism, hope always rose out of the story, whether she wanted it to or not.

So I'm wondering, is hope always present in Afrofuturism?

Today, we're going to talk with Rivers Solomon, whose debut novel "An Unkindness of Ghosts" has garnered praise and comparison to Butler in the science fiction community.

It's a story of Aster, a botanist who lives on the low decks of a spaceship called Matilda, traveling to a supposed promised land 300 years in the future.

We're going to talk about Butler's impact, the themes of black liberation, transposing the past to the future, and what it means to be a storyteller of the Afrofuturism tradition.

RIVERS SOLOMON: I think she's also done a lot of really strange and off-the-beaten-track things.

And it's like, I-- sometimes, I can't believe that she was published, like, as a black woman who was writing these very, like, not typical things about not typical black people.

And that's like, such a feat.

So "An Unkindness of Ghosts," tell me about the inspiration behind this book.

So when I'm first starting "An Unkindness of Ghosts," I was living in Austin, Texas.

It was a time when a lot of really bad things were happening to black people in the news, where it was like actually getting media attention for once.

Trayvon Martin had recently been killed.

I was thinking about state violence, and specifically, like, state violence against women, black women.

I was processing all these things that were happening in the news.

I was processing stuff in my own life and childhood and background and things that were happening with my friends.

And science fiction seemed like the best medium for it, because I really wanted-- I really wanted to write about all these concepts when there was no escape from them.

One of the things that I thought about when I was reading this book was connecting Lauren Olamina to Aster, and I started to think about the hero's journey.

And I just sort of like, is this-- does this fit in the hero's journey, or is this something else?

Like, does Afrofuturism offer us an alternative to that story structure?

I think it's so different.

So we think of the traditional, you know, heroes, given some sort of, like, task.

They have a flaw.

They overcome all these trials and tribulations.

They're challenged, and then they change in some way that allows them to beat the demon.

But Lauren, from, like, early on, she's like, this is my-- I'm founding a religion.

And even though it does-- some of the story structures, like, things get steadily worse, conflicts arise, but she has this, like, unbreakable confidence.

And she leads these people on this journey, and eventually founds this Earthseed community.

And it's still a story.

You're never bored.

It's not that she doesn't go through bad things, but I feel like the way they affect her and how the story moves is completely different.

DOMINIQUE TAYLOR: Do you think that, reading her now-- RIVERS SOLOMON: Mm-hm.

--it's different to see things that have come to pass or that are coming to pass?

So another-- another writer, another sci fi writer, Ursula Le Guin, said that science fiction wasn't prophetic.

It was almost always talking about things that are happening, to some extent.

Because even, like, the fears that we have about the future are informed about, like, stuff that's going on right now.

So with that in mind, I think, of course, everything in "An Unkindness" is, hopefully, you know, an exaggeration.

But-- but even when you think about, like, sort of what's going on in various places of the world, like, for some people it's-- it's not like that.

I mean, I think we're, like, on the blessed side.

We're on the lucky side.

For many, it's much worse.

And I think either people are, like, ready to hear or ready to see it when they're reading it, and theyre like, oh, yeah.

Or like, they're not going to see it, no matter what.

DOMINIQUE TAYLOR: What does Afrofuturism mean to you?

RIVERS SOLOMON: To me, Afrofuturism is about writing, and art, film, visual art, theater, that's based on a future where black people actually exist, which a lot of sci fi doesn't have that.

We just have mysteriously left the building.

It's about blending future and past.

It's taking things that have existed for thousands of years and spinning them and twisting them in a new way, and to see how they might survive into the future.

Afrofuturism allows artists to address the problems of the past and present while creating new worlds of the future in which black liberation exists.

It's pure imagination.

It's pure creativity, and it's the boldest human expression of determined survival.

That's all we have today.

I hope this exploration inspires you to find some Afrofuturism in the near future.

Until then, remember to read or be read.

DOMINIQUE TAYLOR (VOICEOVER): "The Great American Read" is a new series on PBS about our most beloved books.

it leads to a nationwide vote on America's favorite novel.

So head over to PBS.org/greatamericanread to vote for your favorite novel today.

Check the link in the description box for more details.