Point of View

The point of view of The City We Became begins in first-person, changes to third-person in the body of the novel, and concludes in first-person. The first-person narrative is the perspective of the primary avatar. When the novel opens he is describing his meetings with Sao Paulo, experience as a young black man in New York City, and his call to defend New York in his role as the city's avatar. Jemisin uses this character's first-person narration to symbolize his identity as the avatar of the city as a whole.

In Chapter 1, N. K. Jemisin switches the narrative voice to third-person to symbolize that the primary avatar has been rendered unconscious in the fight with the Enemy. The primary avatar is no longer able to narrate because he is in a coma. Instead of moving to the first-person narration of Manny or the other avatars...