Reclaiming Time, Rewriting Space: Diasporic Transnationalism in Nnedi Okorafor’s <i>Binti</i> and Tomi Adeyemi’s <i>Legacy of Orïsha</i> Trilogies

African-inspired young adult (YA) speculative fiction, examined here through Nnedi Okorafor’s Binti and Tomi Adeyemi’s Legacy of Orïsha trilogies, offers rich insights into complex and layered experiences that centre Africanness and agentive teenaged heroines that disrupt popular Western-dominated perceptions of futuristic and/or magical societies. The theoretical framework of Third Space and the methodologies from Womanism, coupled with the premise of the Dark Fantastic, help to unpack the question: How do Nigerian American women authors embed intersectional, transnational identities into their protagonists? And how can these gendered and culturally specific perspectives be used to develop more inclusive theories and methodologies for understanding YA speculative fiction?