Olatunde Osunsanmi and Living the Transatlantic Apocalypse

This chapter explores Nigerian American Olatunde Osunsanmi’s commercially successful film The Fourth Kind as African sf immersing the audience in an empathic experience of the Transatlantic Human Trade as described in Olaudah Equiano’s Interesting Narrative, and alien invasion and colonization as depicted in Okot p’Bitek’s Song of Lawino. Analysis includes excavation of traditional pre-Christian Ifá symbolism in the film, such as the use of the owl to represent the quest for wisdom and humility of the god/dess Obatala, and situates Osunsanmi’s experiential achievement in relation to the legacy of H. G. Wells’s War of the Worlds.