Speculative fiction by writers of color

Science fiction, horror and fantasy as created by nonwhite authors

Speculative fiction is defined as science fiction, fantasy, and horror. Within those categories exists many other subcategories, for example cyberpunk, magical realism, and psychological horror.

"Person of color" is a term used in the United States to denote non-white persons, sometimes narrowed to mean non-WASP persons or non-Hispanic whites, if "ethnic whites" are included. The term "person of color" is used to redefine what it means to be a part of the historically marginalized racial and ethnic groups within Western society. A writer of color is a writer who is a part of a marginalized culture in regards to traditional Euro-Western mainstream culture. This includes Asians, African-Americans, Africans, Native Americans, Latinos, Asian Americans, and Pacific Islanders.

While writers of color may sometimes focus on experiences unique to their cultural heritage, which have sometimes been considered "subcategories" of national heritage (e.g. the black experience within American culture), many do not only write about their particular culture or members within that culture, in the same way that many Americans of European descent (traditionally categorized as Caucasian or white) do not only write about Western culture or members of their cultural heritage. The works of many well-known writers of color tend to examine issues of identity politics, religion, feminism, race relations, economic disparity, and the often unacknowledged and rich histories of various cultural groups.

African-American (Black) speculative fiction

African-American science fiction and fantasy and their origins

Black speculative fiction often focuses on race and the history of race relations in Western society. The history of slavery, the African diaspora, and the Civil Rights Movement sometimes influence the narrative of SF stories written by black authors. Within science fiction, the concern is that many traditional science fiction works do not include black people in the future under any context, or only in sidelined roles.

As the popularity of science fiction and other speculative genres grows within the black community, some longtime fans and black writers branch out to write about "universal" themes that cross cultural lines and feature African and African-American protagonists. These stories and novels may not deal heavily with issues concerning race but instead primarily focus on other aspects of life. They are notable because, historically, many science fiction works that deal with traditional science fiction subject matter do not feature characters of color.

The cultural significance of science fiction works by black writers is being recognized in the mainstream as more fans indicate a desire for stories that reflect their interests in speculative fiction and also reflect their unique experiences as people of color. Non-POC fans are also interested in these works. While they may or may not identify with the cultural contexts of the work, they can and do identify with the characters within the context of the story and enjoy the science fiction themes and plots. This is indicated by the popularity of writers like Octavia E. Butler, Walter Mosley, Nalo Hopkinson, and Tananarive Due.

The contributions of writers such as Octavia E. Butler, usually credited as the first black woman to gain widespread acclaim and recognition as a speculative fiction writer, have influenced the works of new generations of SF writers of color.

Hope Wabuke, a writer and assistant professor at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln of English and Creative Writing, argues that the term "Black Speculative Literature" can encompass the terms Afrofuturism, Africanfuturism, and Africanjujuism, the latter two coined by Nnedi Okorafor, all of which center "African and African diasporic culture, thought, mythos, philosophy, and worldviews."[1]

See also

African-American, African-Canadian, and African-British science fiction, fantasy, and horror


See also:

  • African Speculative Fiction Society

Asian speculative fiction

Japanese horror and its origins

Belief in ghosts, demons and spirits has been deep-rooted in Japanese folklore throughout history. It is entwined with mythology and superstition derived from Japanese Shinto, as well as Buddhism and Taoism brought to Japan from China and India. Stories and legends, combined with mythology, have been collected over the years by various cultures of the world, both past and present. Folklore has evolved in order to explain or rationalize various natural events. Inexplicable phenomena arouse a fear in humankind because there is no way for us to anticipate them or to understand their origins.[2] The early horror stories of Japan (also known as Kaidan or more recently J-Horror) revolved around vengeful spirits or Yūrei. In recent years, interest in these tales have been revived with the release of such films as Ju-on: The Grudge and Ring.

Japanese science fiction and fantasy and their origins

Japanese fiction has assumed a position of significance in many genres of world literature as it continues to chart its own creative course. Whereas science fiction in the English-speaking world developed gradually over a period of evolutionary change in style and content, SF in Japan took off from a very different starting line. Starting in the 1950s and 1960s, Japanese SF writers worked to combine their own thousand-year-old literary tradition with a flood of Western SF and other fiction. Contemporary Japanese SF thus began in a jumble of ideas and periods, and ultimately propelled Japanese authors into a quantum leap of development, rather than a steady process of evolution.

See also

  • Category:Japanese speculative fiction writers

Chinese science fiction and fantasy and their origins

  • Category:Chinese speculative fiction

In 2008, Three Body Problem was published in Chinese by Liu Cixin. It was translated into English in 2014 and became the first Asian novel to win the Best Novel Hugo Award in 2015. [3]

Bangladeshi science fiction

Indian speculative fiction

Thai science fiction and fantasy and their origins

  • Category:Thai science fiction writers

Caribbean speculative fiction writers of note

See Also:

  • Category:Cuban speculative fiction writers

South American speculative fiction writers of note

  • Category:Argentine speculative fiction writers
  • Category:Brazilian speculative fiction writers

U.S. Latino speculative fiction

Cultural theorist Christopher Gonzalez argues that Latino speculative, fantasy, and weird fiction create necessary excursions into the realm of impossible in order for writers and readers of color to cope with 21st-century realities.[5] Latino speculative fiction brings humor to fantastical, futuristic, comedic, and bleak political subjects, offering readers strange new concepts such as: los cosmos azteca, shape shifting robots, pre-Columbian holobooks, talking sardines and gun toting reptiles, and cybernetically wired patron saints.[6] Latino authors write about the legacy of colonialism, racism, sexism, mass incarceration, machismo culture, and other social injustices. Latino critic Frederick Luis Aldama noted that it has been half a century since a Latin American Boom writers introduced magical realism to the publishing world.[7] A new generation of Latino writers used that historical literary moment as a springboard into bold explorations of speculative writing.[7]

Pulitzer Prize-winner Junot Diaz, author of "Monstro," noted that colonialism's legacy in Caribbean culture involves speculative fiction, monsters, and aliens.[8] The short story "Room for Rent," by Richie Narvaez, in which the arrival of extraterrestrials is likened to the arrival of Columbus to the Caribbean, "evokes a dialogue between past and present colonial scenarios."[9] In the story collection Her Body and Other Parties, Carmen Maria Machado deals with misogyny through science fiction and ghost stories.[10] Giannina Braschi's United States of Banana (2011) deals with Puerto Rican independence, financial terrorism, and racism, by imagining what might happen if the United States tries to sell Puerto Rico to China as debt relief or turn the island into the 51st state.[11][12] Speculative fiction about Latino immigration includes Alex Rivera's cult film Sleep Dealer, which is set a futurist, militarized world of closed borders, drone surveillance, and an abused global digital workforce.[13] Eric Garcia's The Repossession Mambo (2009) is a futuristic horror story about a health care system in which body parts are bought, sold, and repossessed depending on the financial agreement.[14] Mexican-American author Rudy Ruiz has written dystopian sci-fi and magical realism works addressing social issues related to immigration, borders, social justice and machismo.[15] Silvia Moreno-Garcia stands as a prominent figure in U.S. Latino speculative fiction, celebrated for her rich storytelling that intertwines cultural heritage with imaginative worlds through several of her works including Mexican Gothic and Certain Dark Things.[16]

List of Latino authors of note

Native American speculative fiction

Two-Spirit speculative fiction

Two-Spirit speculative fiction is a genre that explores themes of gender identity and cultural perspectives through the lens of Indigenous traditions and futuristic or alternate realities. This genre presents a unique opportunity for Indigenous authors and readers to reclaim and redefine their narratives, while challenging mainstream assumptions about gender and culture.[20]

List of Native authors of note

Asian diaspora speculative fiction writers of note

Anglo-Indian speculative fiction writers

See also

Further reading

  • hooks, bell (1999). Yearning: Race, Gender, and Cultural Politics. Boston: South End Press.
  • Bogle, Donald (2001). Toms, Coons, Mulattoes, Mammies, and Bucks: An Interpretive History of Blacks in American Films (4th ed.). New York: Bloomsbury.
  • Carrington, André M. (2016). Speculative Blackness: The Future of Race in Science Fiction. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.
  • http://www.afrocyberpunk.com/

References

  1. ^ Wabuke, Hope (27 August 2020). "Afrofuturism, Africanfuturism, and the Language of Black Speculative Literature". LA Review of Books. Archived from the original on 29 August 2020. Retrieved 25 February 2021.
  2. ^ Rubin, Norman A. (26 June 2000). "Ghosts, Demons and Spirits in Japanese Lore". Asianart.com.
  3. ^ "2015 Hugo Awards". The Hugo Award. 31 March 2015. Retrieved 24 February 2024.
  4. ^ "Marlon James's Next Book Will Be 'African Game Of Thrones'". Gizmodo. 12 December 2015. Retrieved 15 February 2023.
  5. ^ González, Christopher (2013), Aldama, Frederick Luis (ed.), "Latino Sci-Fi: Cognition and Narrative Design in Alex Rivera's Sleep Dealer", Latinos and Narrative Media: Participation and Portrayal, New York: Palgrave Macmillan US, pp. 211–223, doi:10.1057/9781137361783_14, ISBN 978-1-137-36178-3, retrieved 12 October 2020
  6. ^ Latinx rising : an anthology of Latinx science fiction and fantasy. Goodwin, Matthew David, Aldama, Frederick Luis. Columbus. 2020. ISBN 978-0-8142-7799-7. OCLC 1157344767.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) CS1 maint: others (link)
  7. ^ a b Latinx rising : an anthology of Latinx science fiction and fantasy. Goodwin, Matthew David,, Aldama, Frederick Luis, 1969-. Columbus. 2020. ISBN 978-0-8142-7799-7. OCLC 1157344767.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) CS1 maint: others (link)
  8. ^ Grady, Constance (2 October 2016). "In conversation with Junot Díaz: on the force field of privilege and the power of art". Vox. Retrieved 12 October 2020.
  9. ^ Goodwin, Matthew David (2021). The Latinx Files: Race, Migration, and Space Aliens. Rutgers University Press. ISBN 978-1978815117.
  10. ^ Corrigan, Jen (28 April 2018). "Speculative Feminism: On Carmen Maria Machado's 'Her Body and Other Parties'". Medium. Retrieved 12 October 2020.
  11. ^ Sheeran, Amy; Smith, Amanda M. (2018). "A Graphic Revolution: Talking Poetry Politics with Giannina Braschi". Chiricú Journal: Latina/o Literatures, Arts, and Cultures. 2 (2): 130. doi:10.2979/chiricu.2.2.10. ISSN 0277-7223. S2CID 158357009.
  12. ^ Riofrio, John (1 March 2020). "Falling for debt: Giannina Braschi, the Latinx avant-garde, and financial terrorism in the United States of Banana". Latino Studies. 18 (1): 66–81. doi:10.1057/s41276-019-00239-2. ISSN 1476-3443. S2CID 212759434.
  13. ^ Montgomery, David. "Alex Rivera's lost cult hit "Sleep Dealer" about immigration and drones is back". Washington Post. ISSN 0190-8286. Retrieved 12 October 2020.
  14. ^ González, Christopher (2013), Aldama, Frederick Luis (ed.), "Latino Sci-Fi: Cognition and Narrative Design in Alex Rivera's Sleep Dealer", Latinos and Narrative Media: Participation and Portrayal, New York: Palgrave Macmillan US, pp. 211–223, doi:10.1057/9781137361783_14, ISBN 978-1-137-36178-3, retrieved 12 October 2020
  15. ^ Jessi Rae Morton (27 December 2021). ""The Resurrection of Fulgencio Ramirez" Is A Bildungsroman Filled with Magic, Curses, and Star-Crossed Love". Southern Review of Books.
  16. ^ Moreno-Garcia, Silvia (25 October 2016). Certain Dark Things: A Novel. Thomas Dunne Books. ISBN 978-1250099082.
  17. ^ a b c d "Books". latinomagazine.com. Retrieved 12 October 2020.
  18. ^ Poets, philosophers, lovers: on the writings of Giannina Braschi. Aldama, Frederick Luis, O'Dwyer, Tess. Pittsburgh, Pa. 2020. ISBN 978-0-8229-4618-2. OCLC 1143649021.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) CS1 maint: others (link)
  19. ^ Chaviano, Daína, 1957- (2009). The island of eternal love. Labinger, Andrea G. (1st Riverhead trade pbk. ed.). New York: Riverhead Books. ISBN 978-1-59448-379-0. OCLC 268795928.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  20. ^ Pearson, Wendy Gay (19 October 2022), "Speculative Fiction and Queer Theory", Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Communication, doi:10.1093/acrefore/9780190228613.013.1214, ISBN 978-0-19-022861-3, retrieved 25 February 2024