Binti Themes

Binti, the novella’s titular character, is a mathematically gifted young woman of the South African Himba people. Her world turns upside down when she’s admitted to Oomza University far across the galaxy—on a full scholarship. In the world of the novella, the Himba stick close to home and seldom leave their ancestral lands, even for nearby cities—and no Himba has ever gone to Oomza Uni. Notably, Binti leaves her home believing she knows exactly…

Math and science guide life in Binti’s technology-rich world. Binti’s father is a skilled maker of astrolabes which, in the world of the novel, are handheld communication devices that also store a person’s entire life history. Binti herself ultimately travels to study math at Oomza Uni, far across the galaxy, on a spaceship that is a genetically engineered living creature. For Binti and for many of her future classmates that she meets on her…

Teenage Binti, as the first member of the Himba tribe to be accepted into the prestigious Oomza University, is an object of curiosity and scorn when she enters the wider world populated primarily by the Khoush people, who are lighter-skinned and hold political power in Binti’s world. However, when jellyfish-like aliens known as the Meduse take over Binti’s spaceship, killing everyone but Binti and the pilot, Binti finds herself not just the only Himba…