Allotropes and Speculative Obligation: SF in Southern Africa

This article focuses on speculative fiction written by authors from Southern Africa to examine the nature and effect of genre in fiction from a non-European context. In particular, I claim that Yvette Lisa Ndlovu (Zimbabwe), Namwali Serpell (Zambia), Tlotlo Tsamaase (Botswana), and Nick Wood (Zambia) turn to alternate history to move beyond the stasis of a utopia/dystopia binary. Thus, by creating new settings for both social and intimate interactions within what I call allotropic temporality, a term developed in the article, these authors reestablish a temporal arc: futural possibilities that ensure aesthetic and ethical alternatives by offering nurturing kinship relations and flourishing communities.