Award winning author and founding member of FIYAH Literary Magazine, Phenderson Djèlí Clark, is interviewed by Grace Chun, project coordinator at University of Florida Samuel Proctor Oral History Program, as part of the 2020 Zora Neale Hurston Festival in Eatonville, Florida. Mr. Clark shares how his time in Trinidad, his exposure to afro-creole folktales, Hindu stories, Muslim festivals as well as his exposure to Twilight Zone and old horror movies from his parents nurtured a deep interest in the fantastic. Mr. Clark defines afrofuturism as something to do with the future, whether it is how Black people will exist in the future or futuristic ideas. He describes how his writing fits more with retro-afrofuturism, where you imbue the past with future elements and explore a past that never was. Mr. Clark says that afrofuturism offers a way to resist the kind of future in a world like now and how to form a resistance against it; it empowers people to imagine a different future, a possibility of a different future. He also talks about how afrofuturism extends beyond literary work into music and other creative forms.
Read
