Week Twelve: Afro-Futurism and Diverse Position Science Fiction

     For this week I read “Tan-Tan and the Rolling Calf”. First off, big fan of ankylosaurids. Secondly what I noticed most in this story is the power of words and oral presentation. The piece is also written in a dialect, like a mix between how Patois is written and english, it’s written how people talk. I don’t think this is by mistake. Dialects associated with African or Caribbean people are often looked down upon and not even recognized as a real dialect or language. That the heroine ends her persecution by telling her story through oral prose empathizes the importance of words, so the dialect being chosen is a very direct choice.

     There are also themes of childhood being taken away. Tan-Tan herself lost her home at a young age, and as she grew older lost her father through the abuse he did to her. She hangs out with a Douen, Abitefa. In mythology a douen is a wandering spirit of a child who hadn’t been christened or baptized before death. I do not know if this is true in the book as this is halfway through and their background is not expounded upon. The Rolling Calf also loses it’s mother to Tan-Tan, who then raises it.