Reading List

Authors Like N. K. Jemisin

The Fifth Season was published by Orbit on 4 August 2015. At its centre is Essun, a mother whose small son, Uche, has been beaten to death by his father after showing that he can move the ground; her chapters are written in the second person. Jemisin, born in Iowa City in 1972 and raised in New York and Mobile, Alabama, was still working as a counsellor. In May 2016 a Patreon campaign let her write full-time. The book and its two sequels won the Hugo Award for Best Novel in 2016, 2017 and 2018, the first time anyone had won three years running. She received a MacArthur Fellowship in 2020 and was named an SFWA Grand Master in 2025. The ten writers below share her ground: invented worlds built to show who is used, who is feared, and what it costs to survive.

By Lisanne Swart · 10 authors · Fantasy · Science fiction · Power and survival · Updated October 2026

Quick answer

If you love N. K. Jemisin, start with Octavia E. Butler, author of Kindred (1979) and Parable of the Sower (1993), who in 1995 became the first science-fiction writer to receive a MacArthur Fellowship. Nnedi Okorafor’s Who Fears Death won the World Fantasy Award in 2011, and Nalo Hopkinson was named an SFWA Grand Master five years before Jemisin. Further down are the Le Guin story Jemisin wrote back to, and the Toni Morrison novel behind one of The Fifth Season’s hardest scenes.

10 authors like N. K. Jemisin

01
The ground she stands on

Octavia E. Butler

American · Kindred (1979), Dawn (1987), Parable of the Sower (1993)

Butler was born in Pasadena, California, in 1947 and died in Lake Forest Park, Washington, in 2006. Kindred, a time-travel novel, is her best-selling book; Parable of the Sower and Parable of the Talents (1998) form her Earthseed series. In 1995 she became the first science-fiction writer to receive a MacArthur Fellowship.

The earlier Black woman writing science fiction about power, bodies and survival. Butler’s MacArthur came in 1995 and Jemisin’s in 2020; reading both shows a line running through the genre.

— Lisanne
02
The story she answered

Ursula K. Le Guin

American · A Wizard of Earthsea (1968), The Left Hand of Darkness (1969), The Dispossessed (1974)

Le Guin was born in Berkeley, California, in 1929 and died in Portland, Oregon, in 2018; her father was the anthropologist Alfred Kroeber. Her story “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas” was first published in 1973. In 1977 she refused a Nebula Award in protest at the Science Fiction Writers of America’s revocation of Stanisław Lem’s membership.

Jemisin’s How Long ’til Black Future Month? (2018) opens with “The Ones Who Stay and Fight”, a direct response to Le Guin’s Omelas story. Both build societies with an anthropologist’s eye; Jemisin’s title says what she thinks of walking away.

— Lisanne

Every book by Ursula K. Le Guin →

03
Africanfuturism

Nnedi Okorafor

Nigerian-American · Who Fears Death (2010), Binti (2015), Death of the Author (2025)

Okorafor was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1974, holds American and Nigerian citizenship and calls herself “Naijamerican”. She coined the term Africanfuturism for her work. Who Fears Death won the World Fantasy Award in 2011 and Binti won the Nebula and Hugo awards for best novella. In 2011 she wrote about her mixed feelings at receiving a trophy shaped as a bust of H. P. Lovecraft, and later backed a petition to replace it with one of Octavia Butler. Death of the Author (January 2025) won the 2026 Locus Award for science-fiction novel.

Speculative fiction that refuses a European default, by a writer who, like Jemisin, has argued in public about racism inside the genre. The closest contemporary match.

— Lisanne
04
Caribbean roots, invented worlds

Nalo Hopkinson

Jamaican-Canadian · Brown Girl in the Ring (1998), Midnight Robber (2000)

Hopkinson was born in Kingston, Jamaica, in 1960 and is a Canadian citizen. In 2020 she was named the 37th Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association, an honour Jemisin received five years later.

An earlier Black woman writing fantasy and science fiction, working from Caribbean rather than American roots. Suits readers who want Jemisin’s range of invented worlds from another tradition.

— Lisanne
05
From the clinic to the stars

Tade Thompson

British · Making Wolf (2015), Rosewater (2016)

Thompson was born in London in 1969, is of Yoruba descent and works as a psychiatrist at St James’ Hospital in Portsmouth. Rosewater, the first book of his Wormwood Trilogy, won the Arthur C. Clarke Award in 2019; he was the second writer of black African heritage to win it. The trilogy was a Hugo finalist for best series in 2020.

A writer who came to fiction from mental-health work, as Jemisin came from counselling. Science fiction by a British writer of Yoruba descent, for readers who want the genre seen from outside America.

— Lisanne
06
Epic fantasy, rebuilt

Marlon James

Jamaican · A Brief History of Seven Killings (2014), Black Leopard, Red Wolf (2019), The Disappearers (2026)

James was born in Kingston, Jamaica, in 1970 and teaches literature at Macalester College in Minnesota. A Brief History of Seven Killings won the Booker Prize in 2015. Black Leopard, Red Wolf began a planned fantasy trilogy, continued in Moon Witch, Spider King (2022). The Disappearers (2026) is on the 2026 Booker shortlist. Critics are divided over the graphic violence and sex in his books.

A literary novelist who turned to epic fantasy and built it from outside the European tradition, as Jemisin did. Harsher and more violent than Broken Earth; for readers who want its scale in a different register.

— Lisanne
07
History through a strange lens

Colson Whitehead

American · The Intuitionist (1999), The Underground Railroad (2016), Cool Machine (2026)

Whitehead was born in New York City in 1969. The Underground Railroad won the National Book Award in 2016 and the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2017. He has also written a zombie novel, Zone One (2011). Cool Machine, published in July 2026, completes his Harlem Trilogy.

A novelist who uses a speculative device to make the history of American slavery newly visible, as Jemisin uses an invented planet to make oppression visible. For readers who want her themes in a literary novel.

— Lisanne

Every book by Colson Whitehead →

08
A mother’s impossible choice

Toni Morrison

American · The Bluest Eye (1970), Song of Solomon (1977), Beloved (1987)

Morrison was born in Lorain, Ohio, in 1931 and died in New York in 2019. Beloved, which won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1988, was inspired by Margaret Garner, an enslaved woman who killed her two-year-old daughter when faced with being returned to slavery. Morrison received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1993.

In The Fifth Season, Syenite kills her own child rather than let the Guardians take him. Morrison asked the same question of a mother under slavery. The literary ancestor of Jemisin’s hardest scene.

— Lisanne

Every book by Toni Morrison →

09
Bodies the state controls

Margaret Atwood

Canadian · The Handmaid’s Tale (1985), Oryx and Crake (2003), The Testaments (2019)

Atwood was born in Ottawa in 1939. She calls her novels speculative fiction rather than science fiction, because they use means that already exist and take place on Earth. The Testaments, set fifteen years after The Handmaid’s Tale, was a joint winner of the Booker Prize in 2019.

A state that decides who bears children and who owns them: Gilead assigns handmaids, and Jemisin’s Fulcrum forces orogenes to breed. Atwood keeps hers on a recognisable Earth; Jemisin sets hers on an invented supercontinent.

— Lisanne

Every book by Margaret Atwood →

10
Changing the genre’s grammar

Ann Leckie

American · Ancillary Justice (2013), Translation State (2023), Radiant Star (2026)

Leckie was born in Toledo, Ohio, in 1966. Ancillary Justice, her first novel, won the Hugo, Nebula, Arthur C. Clarke and BSFA awards. Its hero, Breq, is the last surviving fragment of a warship’s mind, and because the Radchaai do not distinguish people by gender, the book uses “she” for everyone. She won the 2024 Hugo for best series, and Radiant Star was published in May 2026.

The other writer of the 2010s who changed how science fiction is told: Leckie uses one pronoun for everyone, Jemisin writes Essun in the second person. Both write empires from the side of the people they use.

— Lisanne

Where to start if you loved N. K. Jemisin

If you want where it all began, read Butler.

Kindred (1979) is her best-selling book; Parable of the Sower (1993) begins the Earthseed series.

If you want the closest contemporary match, read Okorafor.

Who Fears Death (2010) won the World Fantasy Award; Binti (2015) is a short way in.

If you want the argument behind one of her stories, read Le Guin.

“The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas” (1973) is the story Jemisin answers in “The Ones Who Stay and Fight”.

If you want her themes in a literary novel, read Morrison.

Beloved (1987) won the Pulitzer Prize and is built on the true story of Margaret Garner.

If you are new to Jemisin herself, start with The Fifth Season.

The first Broken Earth book (2015); The City We Became (2020) is set in present-day New York, and How Long ’til Black Future Month? (2018) collects her stories.

Frequently asked questions about authors like N. K. Jemisin

Who writes like N. K. Jemisin?

Octavia E. Butler, Nnedi Okorafor and Nalo Hopkinson are the closest matches, with Ursula K. Le Guin and Ann Leckie among the writers who changed how science fiction and fantasy are told.

What should I read after the Broken Earth trilogy?

Octavia E. Butler’s Parable of the Sower (1993) or Nnedi Okorafor’s Who Fears Death (2010).

Is N. K. Jemisin like Ursula K. Le Guin?

Both build whole societies with an anthropologist’s eye. Jemisin’s story “The Ones Who Stay and Fight” (2018) is a direct response to Le Guin’s “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas” (1973).

Which N. K. Jemisin book should I read first?

The Fifth Season (2015), the first Broken Earth book and her best known; How Long ’til Black Future Month? (2018) is a good sampler of her short fiction.

Is the Broken Earth trilogy being adapted?

In June 2021 Sony’s TriStar Pictures won the film rights, with Jemisin adapting the novels herself.

Does N. K. Jemisin have a new book?

Her most recent novel is The World We Make (2022), the sequel to The City We Became. In 2025 she was named an SFWA Grand Master.

Sources

List last reviewed 31 October 2026.

Written by Lisanne Swart, who has curated reading lists and author guides at lisanneswart.com since 2021. Every comparison here is a judgement about method and subject, not an algorithmic match. See more on her personal bookshelf.

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