‘Chain-Gang All-Stars’ Author Talks Abolition and Sci-Fi at Oakland Arts & Lectures

In Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah’s debut novel, Chain-Gang All-Stars, incarcerated people fight to the death for a chance at freedom in televised gladiator matches. These “hard action-sports” have become a wildly popular — and extremely profitable — form of entertainment in a not-so-distant, technologically advanced future.

The story is a searing indictment not only of the American prison system, but of the general public’s complicity in exploitation and injustice. And given that the Bay Area is a hub for abolitionist activism — and the place where many real-life dystopian technologies are developed — Chain-Gang All-Stars makes a fascinating subject for the Feb. 4 launch of a new speaker series called Oakland Arts & Lectures.

While the premise of Chain-Gang All-Stars may sound bleak, the 2023 bestseller has a rich emotional core. At its center, two Black women in love reach for connection despite their dehumanizing circumstances. It’s those seeds of hope that remind the reader that though our political landscape might feel like a flaming dumpster careening towards an abyss, there’s still good in humanity, and the potential to fight for a better world.

“My work is to try to remind us that we are it,” says Adjei-Brenyah from his book-filled New York office over Zoom. “Even if we’re not the rule makers, we’re the rule carry-out-ers. We’re not only the victims, we are also the hand that’s holding the hammer. It can be scary, but it’s also powerful as well.”

“We are the power to change things,” the 33-year-old author adds.

At Oakland Arts & Lectures, Adjei-Brenyah will take the stage at Oakstop’s Gaines Gallery in a conversation with Isis Asare, founder of Sistah Scifi, an online bookstore and community centered on Black and Indigenous speculative fiction.

Sistah Scifi is helming the programming at Oakland Arts & Lectures. Inspired by City Arts & Lectures across the bridge in San Francisco, the City of Oakland-funded program’s aim is to connect the Town’s literary community to the national scene. That dovetails with Sistah Scifi’s mission of using speculative fiction to fuel activists’ imaginations.

“We can begin with talking about the book, but then also talk about larger societal themes and do that in community,” says Asare, who is also hosting upcoming in-person Sistah Scifi events in San Francisco and Seattle. “Once those conversations happen, it’s like, how can we move forward? How can we mobilize? How can we organize?”

Indeed, Chain-Gang All-Stars lends itself to those nuanced conversations. Far from a straightforward allegory of good versus evil, the novel gets under readers’ skin and forces us to examine our own capacity for violence. Adjei-Brenyah writes engrossing battle scenes that glue readers to the page while also implicating them, making horrifically clear how despicable forms of entertainment can become normalized. And though we root for the main characters, they’re not without deep flaws and dark pasts. By allowing us to see their complicated humanity, the novel affirms people’s capacity for remorse, healing and positive change.

Today’s social-justice movements and speculative fiction have a symbiotic relationship. Chain-Gang All-Stars references activist-scholar Ruth Wilson Gilmore as characters grapple with how society should address interpersonal violence. And abolitionists like adrienne maree brown regularly turn to Octavia Butler, whose canonical novels grapple with the legacy of slavery and imagine futures in which Black people are liberators and change agents.

“To me, activism is really like love taking action in the world,” Adjei-Brenyah says. Much like speculative fiction, “It requires you to see what’s in front of you and take an imaginative leap towards what could be instead.”

By putting Black and Indigenous sci-fi authors at the center, Sistah Scifi is creating intentional space for dialogues that encourage building new worlds both on and off the page.

As Adjei-Brenyah puts it, “That perspective is exactly what we actually need to transform this world because of not only the way we’ve been oppressed, but also because of the way we thrive and how often that story is not told.”

Oakland Arts & Lectures with Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah and Sistah Scifi takes place on Feb. 4 at Oakstop’s Gaines Gallery (1740 Telegraph Ave., Oakland). Free.