The Space Between Worlds

The Space Between Worlds is a prominent example of Afrofuturism, a cultural aesthetic and genre that explores the intersection of the African diaspora with technology and futurism and critiques contemporary social and racial injustices. Blended with many of the hallmarks of dystopian literature, the novel uses its science-fiction setting to build a powerful allegory for real-world manifestations of systemic inequality, following in the footsteps of celebrated titles such as Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Sower (1993) and its sequel, Parable of the Talents (1998). Narratives in this highly specialized genre are designed to highlight, examine, and indict real-world social injustices that are often marginalized or ignored entirely. Within The Space Between Worlds, this pattern is most plainly evident in the divisions that separate the inhabitants of the wealthy, walled Wiley City from the impoverished denizens of Ashtown’s toxic wastelands. Steeped in corporate corruption and rampant prejudice, this society operates on a rigid class hierarchy in which geography dictates who has access to safety and who is deemed expendable.

The blatant inequality of this situation is further exacerbated by the ruthless recruitment tactics of the Eldridge Institute, which hires traversers from beyond the safety of Wiley’s walls simply because their disadvantaged circumstances have resulted in their counterparts’ deaths on many different worlds. Ironically, those who are the most privileged—the inhabitants of Wiley City—are ill-suited to the task of traversing because their wealth and access allows them to survive in most worlds. Within this context, the protagonist’s cynical labeling of the Ashtown residents as “trash people” (5) acknowledges the harsh reality that marginalized communities are often exploited for dangerous labor.

The Ashtown residents’ collective plight also echoes the modern reality that low-income communities often bear the brunt of environmental pollution and hazardous waste disposal, while more affluent communities blithely pretend that these problems—and the deaths that they cause—do not exist. Alternatively, from a more politically oriented perspective, Johnson’s use of a fortified city also evokes contemporary debates over border walls, such as the one at the US–Mexico border, as these issues physically manifest in harsh policies of exclusion, creating stark divisions between neighboring populations. By grounding the novel’s futuristic premise in these tangible social issues, Johnson uses the Afrofuturist lens to examine the various ways in which class, race, and privilege continue to shape people’s individual destinies, and its dystopian vision is meant to be a sharp reflection of the modern world’s most shameful flaws.