The first novella in the series, Binti, introduces the reader to its title character. Binti is a 16-year-old young woman of an ethnic group on Earth named the Himba. The Himba are a traditional group who “didn’t like to leave the homeland” (2). Binti is a “master harmonizer” of her people; she can “communicate with spirit flow and convince them to become one current” (16). Binti is thus the first of her people to attend the renowned Oomza University, an intergalactic institution. When Binti discovers that she has been accepted and granted scholarships, she runs away from home and boards a ship to the university without alerting her friends or family. The novella begins with Binti leaving home:

Now the weight of my entire life was pressing on my shoulders. I was defying the most traditional part of myself for the first time in my entire life. I was leaving in the dead of night and they had no clue. My nine siblings, all older than me except for my younger sister and brother, would never see this coming (2).

Although she has only just left, Binti misses her ancestral home, named the Root, and her father’s astrolabe shop.