Ep. 98 - Goliath and Captain America, with Tochi Onyebuchi

Book Dreams

Is it possible for one person to write both award-winning literary speculative fiction and Marvel's newest “Captain America” series and also be a former civil rights lawyer, a film school graduate, and be less than 35 years old? If the person in question is author Tochi Onyebuchi, the answer is yes.

In this episode, Julie and Eve talk with Tochi about his new novel, Goliath, a sweeping science fiction epic set in a post-apocalyptic America only thirty years from today. They also talk about Tochi’s other new big project: in April Marvel Comics is debuting a new “Captain America” series, written by Tochi, that stars Sam Wilson as the first Black Captain America. In this wide ranging interview, Julie, Eve, and Tochi discuss everything from how he interwove themes of race, class, gentrification, climate change, and allyship in Goliath to what it was like for Tochi to go from being a Marvel fan to a Marvel author. Tochi describes, too, the array of themes that he is exploring with this new “Captain America” series: “If Captain America is a mimesis or even a synecdoche of America, then…what is it gonna look like if Captain America, as embodied in Sam Wilson, is enlisted in an effort at regime change? … What is that going to mean for Captain America, as is the subtitle of the book, ‘a symbol of truth’?”

Tochi Onyebuchi is the author of the new novel Goliath, which is a New York Times Editor's Choice pick and the most anticipated pick for USA Today, Bustle, Buzzfeed, Goodreads, and Nerdist. He is also the author of the “Beasts Made of Night” series, “The War Girls” series, Marvel's “Black Panther Legends” limited series, and Marvel’s upcoming “Captain America: Symbol of Truth” series. His first novel for adults, Riot Baby, was a finalist for the Hugo, Nebula, Locus, and NAACP Image awards, and winner of the New England Book Award for Fiction, the Ignite Award for Best Novella, and the World Fantasy Award.

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