This review of Nalo Hopkinsons Midnight Robber examines some of the key ways in which this novel has stolen our hearts and remains relevant in its weavings more than 20 years after publication.
Midnight Robber begins with the poem “Stolen” by David Findlay, the first lines of which read, "I stole the torturer's tongue." This phrase, repeated multiple times throughout the poem, is immediately powerful, arresting and provocative—a foreboding on the novel to follow.
In 350 odd pages or so, Nalo Hopkinson gives us a fully realised world, a bildungsroman, utopia, dystopia, folktales, traditions, and opens the door to a world of possibility.
Beginning in Cockpit County of Toussaint Planet, the premise invites us to imagine a world in which Caribbean, among other people, escaped slavery and earth entirely, travelling to and colonising a new planet. Their descendants live in a utopia marred by little except for some class rumblings, and social order is guided by nanotechnology and Artificial Intelligence in the form of the Grand Nansi Web. It is into this world our protagonist Tan-Tan is born.
A highly lauded novel that has earned its rightful place in the science fiction literati and the Black and Caribbean literary canon and beyond, much has been said about Hopkinson's use of language in the text, but they bear repeating. In a unique imaginative feat, perhaps the first of its kind, Hopkinson blends English, Trinidadian, and Jamaican Creole, creating the novel's own language. It is alluring and subversive but also effectively serves as a call back to Findlay's poem above. Hopkinson beautifully demonstrates how Caribbean and other colonised people have taken back oppressive tools, language being a key one, and made it our own. It is a tool wielded deftly.
It is undeniably powerful and radical to see Caribbean languages centred throughout. Especially, in light of ongoing conversations and debate across the Caribbean about English as an official language in many countries and the use of Caribbean creoles in and outside of schools.
Worldbuilding is crucial and masterfully done here. There are planets, settlements and different types of societies portrayed within, each distinct and vivid. I loved the set-up of Toussaint Planet and its societal order maintained by Granny Nanny and its eshus; the different cultures, atmosphere and landscape; New Half-Way Tree and the settlements populated with characters from folklore stories from West Africa and across Caribbean countries.
One of my favourite elements of the novel is this merging and blending of the African and Caribbean stories. The iconography and characters from Caribbean and West African folklore and American history are magical. Still, more than that, they remind us of shared histories and inherent connection through language and stories. It also instils in the reader the urge to seek the origin of these tales. Music is another essential aspect of the narrative. It underpins the working of the AI, and Nannysong, positing the idea that music can form code, and by knowing the right notes or code, it can unlock a world of possibility. This idea is radical imagination at work, playing and expounding on the view of music as part of the histories of people stolen on slave ships and how slave songs represented a kind of freedom.
It would be amiss to ignore how important the Caribbean is within this novel. It is peppered with elements highlighting the richness of Caribbean cultures, from language from different Caribbean countries, to carnival, music, food, and nature. I know that something as simple as the Toussaint Planet having a Julie Mango tree for Tan-Tan to play under left a sweet and indelible impression on my brain.
Midnight Robber as sci-fi also envisions a different kind of narrative, one that does not centre Western technology, and this can be seen as a challenge to science, technology and the genre. What possibilities and advancements do we consider realistic? Much of the current view in these fields does not centre Caribbean creators, scientists, or technological actors for many reasons, including access and infrastructural problems, some of which can be traced back to a legacy of disruption and plunder.
Nalo Hopkinson, author of Midnight Robber.
Primarily a character-driven novel, Hopkinson presents a myriad of complex and nuanced characters. Take Antonio, Tan-Tan's father, for example, who takes up plenty of space in the narrative. At first, he comes across as a doting father, his reception to Tan-Tan's birth is the opposite of her mother’s, Ione, who, mere minutes after Tan-Tan's birth, realises that she has no interest in motherhood. Ione and Antonio have a tumultuous relationship with infidelity on both sides. However, this disinterest in motherhood makes Ione interesting and noteworthy even though she only appears in the first 25% of the novel, and despite her interest in perhaps vain pursuits courtesy of her colourism privilege. Her character can also be contrasted with at least three other women in the novel with varying levels of maternal attributes or internalised misogyny. In this way, Hopkinson does a great job of presenting nuanced and complex female characters.
As the novel progresses, we see how power and status corrupt Antonio, its extent unveiled when we meet Aislyn and Quamina on New Half Way Tree. After Antonio accidentally commits a serious crime, he chooses to escape justice, taking Tan-Tan with him, thus severing her connection to all she has ever known for good. Their arrival on the prison planet of New Half Way Tree is eventful and transformative in many ways for both of them. The journey also marks the beginning of the transference of Antonio's toxic obsession with Ione onto Tan-Tan.
Tan-Tan, our protagonist, is the star of this, rightfully so. We follow her from a childhood of leisure to a rough life of hardship, abuse and, finally, her transformation into a warrior who gives back to the poor. Hopkinson does a beautiful job showing how abuse victims can internalise a sense of guilt and shame, and it is heart-breaking to watch Tan-Tan's personality split into two due to these events. On arrival at New Half Way Tree, Tan-Tan parrots that labour, i.e. back break, is not for people. Although Granny Nanny allows people who choose to work with their hands the freedom to do so, I wonder if this aspect is a consideration and critique of utopian visions because work is necessary, and perhaps denial of this speaks to the invisibility of the class of people who have to labour.
Despite a rough life, Tan-Tan is one of the few people to allow Chichibud and Benta and the other Douen people dignity and humanity. However, when she goes to live with them after the climax of the situation with Antonio, she briefly regurgitates ideas about their inferiority which she learned from the other humans in Junjuh.
From childhood, Midnight Robber stories resonate with Tan-Tan. Hopkinson's choice to use the Midnight Robber is brilliant, as not only is this figure probably most associated with men, and here Tan-Tan demonstrates she has all the qualities and strengths to carry this character whilst bearing the burdens of womanhood and abuse. It is also a figure of complexity, storytelling and trickery in Caribbean folklore, similar to Anansi and Eshu, and again I love this tie back into all of us connected and featured in this novel.
There are various dilemmas to grapple with in Midnight Robber, including humanity and its need to colonise. Why are people experiencing slavery in other settlements that sometimes resemble societies on earth? Still, people like Chichibud, Benta, Abitefa, and Melonhead demonstrate warmth and compassion, friendship, companionship, and community. I thought it was interesting that the Douen couple also practiced boundaries in their relationship with Tan-Tan along with compassion.
Overall, this is a layered novel with so many elements to unravel. The language and the writing is abound with poignant and thought-provoking lines. I loved how the folk stories were separate but connected to the story, sometimes in vague airy ways. Other times, they came alive in the plot/narrative chapters. Some of my favourites are Tan-Tan and the story of the rolling Calf, How Tan-Tan learned how to thief, and Tan-Tan and Drybone. Tan-Tan being the queen of the Taino people in one of those stories is a beautiful touch, and towards the end, I love the references to ancestors refusing to be eradicated. In this way, Midnight Robber can also be seen as a novel that one can look to for comfort, for the spirit of strength and defiance and refusal against erasure and marginalisation.
Midnight Robber, to me, represents disruption and essential decolonisation of science fiction as a genre. I am a Nigerian reader and a writer based in the UK who has come to science fiction stories perhaps later in life. Finding books by writers such as Nalo Hopkinson and Karen Lord has been enriching and galvanising. Their works continue to challenge my imagination and notions of what science fiction looks like.
Despite its publication more than two decades ago, the ideas and conversations stirred by Midnight Robber remain relevant to today's concerns about language, storytelling and the ability of the marginalised to reclaim their power back.
Midnight Robber by Nalo Hopkins
Aisha Oni is a British-Nigerian writer, book blogger, and an avid reader. You can find her at @aishathebibliophile on Instagram, and @aishandembooks on Twitter.
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