And in some ways, that’s because of the very diversity and community that The City We Became celebrates. Queens has become the epicenter of New York City’s Covid-19 outbreak, with story after story of horror pouring out of the borough’s Elmhurst Hospital. Like so much else in The City We Became, Padmini reads differently during a pandemic than she would if this book had come out in a different cultural moment. Queens is, by some measures, the most diverse place on Earth, and Padmini is the avatar of the borough’s hardworking and ambitious immigrant class. And in the way that Bronca intuitively understands the history of what’s happening with the avatars, Padmini instinctively understands the mechanics of her powers, which work by pure math.
Meet the avatars, continuedĪt last we meet Queens, avatar of my home borough! In The City We Became, she’s Padmini Prakash, the Math Queen, who loves pure theoretical math but is getting her master’s degree in financial engineering so she has a better shot of obtaining a visa after she graduates. In the meantime, we’ve got avatars to analyze and Lovecraftian racism to dismantle. It’ll be a blast to see you - especially since we’ll be joined by N.K. And if you want to see me talk about The City We Became face to face (or, well … screen to screen), sign up to receive info about our live Zoom event at the end of the month. (Spoilers are allowed in the comments, but be sure to label them clearly to make it easier for folks who want to avoid them.) At the end we’ll provide a few discussion questions that you can use to guide your conversation, either here or in the setting of your choosing, but feel free to talk about whatever in particular piques your interest. Jemisin’s The City We Became! This week, we’re tackling chapters six through 10, in which we meet Queens, spend some time with Brooklyn, and dive deep into the science fiction and fantasy community’s problem with racism.Īs with last week’s discussion, there will be no spoilers for the end of the book in the main post. Welcome to the Vox Book Club’s second week of discussion on N.K.
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