The Coming-of-Age Stories That Made Charlie Jane Anders

At Clarkesworld Magazine, Charlie Jane Anders discusses the coming-of-age stories that shaped her award-winning science fiction and helped her confront the world in front of her. “What I love in a coming-of-age story is a character who is discovering their identity at the same time that they’re learning how the world works,” she says. “There’s something super powerful and also heartbreaking about realizing that the world wasn’t what you thought, while also claiming your own selfhood and your own power. I sort of think of Empire Strikes Back as the great coming-of-age story, alongside the Earthsea books. And more recently, Binti by Nnedi Okorafor.”