Death of the Author

Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of death, ableism, and mental illness.

Death of the Author is a novel about agency and the quest to fulfill one’s long-held ambitions. Part of what sets the novel apart, however, is the specificity of the protagonist’s circumstances and how they define the challenges that separate her from her goals. Zelu is not obstructed by her paraplegia but by how people perceive her ability to function because of it. 

One way in which the novel explores this tension is through Zelu’s novel, Rusted Robots. At Amarachi’s wedding, Zelu is called “leg-less” and “crippled” by members of her extended family, who already look down on her for being unmarried in her thirties. Zelu pours her frustrations into her novel, which becomes an extended discourse on the dichotomy of embodiment and disembodiment, explored through characters who manifest in a variety of ways, not all of them physical. Ankara, the protagonist of Zelu’s novel, is an embodied character who values her link to humanity above all things. Zelu’s compassionate and supportive depiction of Ankara connects to her own understanding of the value of embodiment. She may be frustrated by her body at times, but nearly every decision she makes extends that body’s abilities beyond those available to her as a person with paraplegia. As the novel continues, she relies on her extended embodiment to assert her agency and her identity.

The tension that Zelu feels with her family over this issue continues throughout the novel. When Zelu meets Hugo Wagner in Chapter 16, her anxiety around the use of exos is focused on whether it will make her “weird.” However, this fear is less about Zelu’s apprehensions and more about how she thinks her family will perceive it. In the following chapter, she is proved correct when her news is met with revulsion from her family, who see the exos as being “unnatural.” Zelu argues that the use of tools like wheelchairs is the same as using exos, but her family refuses to see beyond their preconceived notions of what life “should” look like for a person with a disability. They refuse to hear from the one person in their family who has this identity and experiences it daily. Through their interviews and private conversations with Zelu, it becomes clear that this resistance is rooted in love, but it illustrates how they see her as someone to be protected, rather than encouraging her to pursue the opportunities available to her.

Toward the end of the novel, however, Zelu transcends her anxiety about what other people think and pursues her childhood dream of becoming an astronaut. As Zelu’s public profile grows and she becomes acquainted with Jack Preston, she begins to realize that the things that have always prevented her from fulfilling that dream no longer hold her back. Zelu’s use of the exos offers her a different experience of embodiment and, in the process, builds her confidence in her ability to achieve whatever she sets out to do. She proves that she is just as capable of traveling to space as people without disabilities are. Because she refuses to accept the limitations placed on her by her loved ones, Zelu can transcend even her own belief in herself and achieve a childhood dream that, at one time, seemed impossible.