100 pages • 3 hours read
Nnedi OkoraforAkata Witch
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2011A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Prologue-Chapter 2Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Prologue Summary: “The Candle”
Sunny Nwazue, a 12-year-old girl, lights a candle one night in her home in Nigeria. Staring at the flame, she sees a vision of the end of the world. Leaning in to see better, she sets her hair on fire, panicking her mother.
Sunny reflects that because she is American-born but of Igbo ethnicity, living in Nigeria, and because she has albinism, she tends to “confuse people.” She recalls a time when she was very sick as a toddler and was saved by a light that glowed above her head. Sunny thinks that this strange event was a sign of what was to come.
Chapter 1 Summary: “Orlu”
An excerpt from the book Fast Facts for Free Agents explains who “Leopard People” are: a secret, worldwide population with mystical abilities who were once massacred two thousand years ago.
At school, Sunny’s classmates tease her about her hair, cut short after it caught fire. Sunny is horrified when her teacher, Miss Tate, asks her to stand in front of the class with a wooden switch and strike each of her classmates’ hands as punishment for writing poor essays. She refuses, but her classmates are angry with her anyway, whispering insults like “akata witch” (11). Sunny hates to be called “akata,” a degrading insult used for African Americans. After school, a group of classmates attacks Sunny, led by a popular girl named Jibaku. A boy named Orlu Ezulike, who is one of the younger students in class like Sunny, calls for them to stop and let Sunny speak. Sunny’s classmates accuse her of letting Miss Tate hit them because Sunny is white, too, but Sunny protests that she isn’t white; she is albino. After the attack, Sunny and Orlu walk home together, and Sunny realizes the bullies hit him, too, when he tried to stop them. When they reach his house, Orlu introduces her to the girl who lives next door, Chichi of Nimm, who is their age but doesn’t go to school. Chichi asks Sunny rude questions about her injuries and her American accent, and Sunny considers hitting her, too.
Chapter 2 Summary: “Chichi”
Another excerpt from Fast Facts for Free Agents warns that once someone knows they are a Leopard Person, their experience of home and the world will become more complicated.
Orlu and Sunny walk home together every day, both because they are becoming friends and because a serial killer, Black Hat Otokoto, has been targeting children. Chichi joins them, too, and Sunny learns that she’s bold and playful. Chichi is also the daughter of a famous musician, Nyanga Toloto, although he left Chichi and her mother and never sends money. One day, Sunny walks home alone, and Chichi meets her, saying she wants to get to know her better. Chichi thinks Sunny has powers, like Orlu, who has the power to “undo bad things” (23). They go inside Chichi’s hut, which is made of mud and filled with books. Chichi’s mother is inside reading, and she quickly gives Sunny a cup of tea, even though there is no kitchen. Orlu joins them, and Sunny asks if he can really undo things. Orlu is upset with Chichi for telling Sunny their secrets. They do some juju (magic), pressing their fingers on symbols and putting a knife to their tongues. Sunny feels strange afterward and sees the world differently. Orlu explains that the juju was a trust knot to keep Sunny from telling their secrets. He says that he and Chichi and their families are Leopard People, a powerful group in Nigeria who know how to use juju. While most juju is completed with juju knives, powders, or other aids, every Leopard Person has an innate ability that they are able to perform without these. Orlu’s particular gift is undoing bad things, and Chichi’s gift is a photographic memory. Sunny starts to feel sick and gets up to leave, but agrees to meet them the next morning.
Prologue-Chapter 2 Analysis
In these first three chapters, Okorafor introduces the three characters who will be central to the story and provides subtle exposition about Leopard People to help the reader orient to the world of the novel. The first character introduced is the protagonist, Sunny, who introduces herself in first-person narration in the Prologue. Sunny establishes her dual national and ethnic identities, as well as her albinism and foreshadowing of her possible special abilities, as seen through her vision in the candle and her childhood memory of a healing light. The use of first-person narration is unique to the Prologue; the novel otherwise uses third-person point-of-view. This gives Sunny a chance to have her voice heard in the text, notably when she is first defining who she is. The intimacy of the first-person point-of-view signals that Sunny’s individual journey will be the most important character arc of the novel and emphasizes the novel’s exploration of identity.
In chapter 1, Okorafor introduces Orlu, the only one of Sunny’s classmates who tries to prevent the bully Jibaku from beating her up. Okorafor establishes right away that Orlu is brave and kind, standing up for Sunny then walking her home. In chapter 2, Okorafor focuses on revealing more information about Chichi, whose eccentricities and quick wit start to win Sunny over after a poor first impression. Chichi is an exciting and mysterious character, and she is the first character who suggests there might be more to Sunny than meets the eye, introducing her to the Leopard world. Chichi and Orlu facilitate the inciting incident of the plot: Sunny’s discovery of the Leopard People.
These opening chapters also use symbolism to foreshadow later plot and character developments. Although Sunny does not yet understand the vision she saw in the candle flame, it is a hint at her special destiny as a Leopard Person. The incident also symbolically ties together Sunny’s magical abilities with her identity by leaving a trace on her physical appearance: Sunny must cut her hair after it burns, creating a link between her unknown and outwardly visible identities.
In between each of these early chapters, Okorafor includes excerpts from a fictional book that will be later referenced in the narrative: Fast Facts for Free Agents. These excerpts serve several purposes. The excerpts often explain a topic that will arise in the next chapter, providing the readers context to understand a plot detail that Sunny will not yet understand, or than other characters may not be motivated to explain within the action. At this stage in the narrative, when the reader has not yet heard the term “free agent” in reference to a Leopard Person with non-magical, or “Lamb,” parents, the excerpts also serve as foreshadowing. Finally, the Fast Facts… excerpts contribute to world building, expanding and developing the Leopard world by creating a more elaborate published text that purports to provide details about surviving in it. Citing fictional in-world texts is a common expositional and narrative strategy of the fantasy genre.
Okorafor also uses diction to establish the West African—and specifically Nigerian—setting of the novel. Akata Witch takes its title from a derogatory term for African Americans used by Nigerian and Yoruba people. This title symbolizes how Sunny will gain confidence in her sense of self and identity over the course of the novel, and come to see the strengths in aspects of her identity that other people perceive as weaknesses. Okorafor uses the term juju to refer to magic as a nod to the folk magic and traditional religions of the same name traditionally practiced in Ghana, Nigeria, and Cameroon. The term “Leopard People” alludes to both the historical Leopard Society that originated in Sierra Leone, and the Ekpe society found primarily among the Efik people of Nigeria. The Leopard Society features connections to magic, supernatural beings, and sorcery, and the sophisticated Ekpe tradition features initiation rites, graded levels of membership, economic control, and ancestral relationships.
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