1 / W.E.B. Du Bois
In The Souls of Black Folk,
W.E.B. Du Bois coined the
term “double conscious-
ness” to describe the
experience of African-
Americans living in a racist
society. Jemisin runs with
the concept. Her heroes
see two realities: In one,
they’re normal humans;
in the other, living cities.
“That’s the part of me that
just wants to play with
words and take them lit-
erally,” she says.2 / Power Rangers
The primary task of City’s
protagonists is to combine
their forces to form
one complete New York.
Jemisin compares the
process to the Rangers
fusing into their Megazord.
“I originally thought I’d make
them all young people,
but that’s not representa-
tive of New York. So two
are young, one is elder,
and one is middle-aged.
I wanted their back-
grounds more varied.”3 / MC Lyte
Brooklyn’s human avatar
is a middle-aged former
rapper modeled after
MC Lyte. At one point in
the book, Brooklyn fights
back against the enemies
threatening her city;
Jemisin wrote some rap-
battle rhymes to go along
with it. “I listened to my
old MC Lyte and wrote
what I thought was an MC
Lyte-like rap,” she says.
Hip-hop friends like Jean
Grae helped her refine it.4 / H.P. Lovecraft
Until 2015, the World Fan-
tasy Award was shaped
as an H.P. Lovecraft bust,
despite the author’s
public record of vile racism.
The protagonists fight
extra-dimensional tenta-
cled creatures disguising
themselves as white
gentrifiers and alt-right
racists. “It’s me engaging
with how much fantasy
owes itself to Lovecraft,
while overlooking his glar-
ing flaws,” Jemisin says.5 / The Empire
Strikes Back
“When you write fantasy,
you think in trilogies,” Jem-
isin explains. The three-part
structure helps increase
the epic stakes of fantasy
storytelling, which Jemisin
first learned as a child
watching Harrison Ford’s
Han Solo get frozen in
carbonite. “The first Star
Wars is sort of a popcorny
thing,” she says. “But
the second is what made
it a powerful story.”6 / A Wizard of Earthsea
That said, Jemisin avoided
the most famous fantasy
trilogy (The Lord of the
Rings) in favor of the
Ursula K. Le Guin books
that rejected tired tropes
about “a farm boy who
gets the girl and a big
sword.” In contrast, Earth-
sea’s Ged Sparrowhawk’s
greatest enemy is himself.
“The idea of fantasy as
psychological self-study
was something I got from
that,” Jemisin explains.THE MAKING OF THE BOOKThe City We Became
BY N.K. JEMISINOn the heels of her
best-selling Broken
Earth trilogy, N.K.
Jemisin returns with
another showcase
for her world-building
prowess. The City We
Became is the first
book in a new trilogy.
When New York City
is threatened by an
alien force, it’s up to
human embodiments
of the five boroughs
to save their city.
Jemisin reveals to EW
the ingredients in her
fantastic concoction.By Christian Holub52134690 APRIL 2020 EW ● COMJEMISIN: LAURA HANIFIN; DUBOIS: BETTMANN ARCHIVE;STAR WARS: ©&TM LUCASFILM; LOVECRAFT: COURTESY EVERETT COLLECTION; POWER RANGERS: GETTY IMAGES. LYTE: TOMAS/IMAGES/GETTY IMAGESAPRIL2020.BOOKS3.LO.D.indd 90 FINAL 3/3/20 1:25 PM