Dawn is a post-apocalyptic dystopian Afrofuturist novel about the experiences of Lilith, a human, Black, feminist protagonist, who finds herself on the spaceship of an alien race called the Oankali. Published in 1987, partly as a response to late-phase Cold War tensions between the U.S. and Soviet Union, Dawn explores the future of the human race after societal collapse and subsequent nuclear war lead to the destruction of Earth and most of its population.
After being asleep in suspended animation on a spaceship for two hundred fifty years, Lilith is Awakened and must acclimate to her alien captors, who lack facial features and whose smooth, gray bodies are covered in snake-like sensory...
