The People’s Library belongs to a rich tradition of science fiction and fantasy that centers the experiences of diasporic African people, especially those of Black women. Other novels, such as Octavia Butler’s Kindred (1979), N.K. Jesmin’s The City We Became (2020), and Nnedi Okorafor’s Death of the Author (2025) create futures and alternate histories in which Black people feature as strong, multi-dimensional protagonists, have agency, and explore elements of Black experience. Such work is a revision of science fiction and fantasy in which Black people are flat, static characters or not present at all. In centering the experiences of Black protagonists, such authors both push back against discriminatory, white-dominated narratives and draw greater attention to the unique experiences and perspectives of the Black community, celebrating the importance of African heritage and Black diasporan culture.

One premise of some speculative fiction is that a character lands in an unfamiliar world and then has to figure out how to navigate that world if they want to survive. Authors of Black speculative fiction present Black historical experiences, such as enslavement or exploitation by institutions, as ordinary parts of the created world or as knowledge Black characters need to leverage for their survival.

In The People’s Library, Echo London is a Black woman who thinks she is working for an institution founded on the utopian ideal that the library can be a democratizing space. In reality, the People’s Library is an institution that Universal Trust runs to extract consciousness from unwitting patrons and administrators alike. Echo is only able to counter Universal Trust by relying on knowledge out of the Black diaspora and traditions from other people of color. She relies on Black and African figures like Jesse Cooper to strategize and Zera Jacob to understand enough philosophy of consciousness to confront her predicament. The narrative also invokes material elements of diasporic African culture, such as masks and textiles, to remind the reader of the importance of diasporic African culture and knowledge. The resolution of the main narrative—Echo survives and realizes she must destroy the library—reflects Henry’s commitment to representing diasporic African culture as a vital, living part of the universe of The People’s Library.