Added all of these to my Goodreads -- as an Indian, I had no idea that these books existed. Great article (with some really cool UI choices); I'm looking forward to reading more from this magazine! Thanks for sharing.
I can second the article's recommendation of Samit Basu, I've liked everything of his I've read. I would also recommend Indra Das, and Saad Z. Hossain.
Ditto... several titles they listed were alien to me! And I had no idea about Rokeya.
Alas, these will have to wait a bit until my next book-funding cycle... I accidentally overdid some Diwali discount book shopping and have a slushpile of about forty scifi titles to work through, and a fiscal deficit to repair :sweat-smile: :D
That said, my extant slushpile has Sci-Fi by contemporary Indian / Indian-origin authors...
Lavanya Lakshminarayan's Interstellar Megachef (next up in the reading Q, along with the Strugatsky brothers).
And SB Divya's books:
Read and enjoyed and will recommend:
- Meru (very cool embodiment of beings, mythologically-inspired)
To-read:
- Loka
- Machinehood
- Contingency plans for the apocalypse
Thanks for the link! I read it earlier today and, wow, she was hard sci-fi, as of the early 1900s. I want to call out two things (water harvesting, energy use), but further details will be spoilers.
I reckon she also presaged some of the demographic / cultural re-workings we are experiencing in the 21st century. Hers was a time of radical social reform and political turmoil in the Indian subcontinent, as well as the world. I suppose many urban intellectuals as well as revolutionaries in the hinterland felt a palpable sense of "hang on, this <insert huge transformation> could actually happen, and we could make it happen".
Fertile ground for all sorts of literary imagination.
Probably worth drawing this thread's attention to the debate over whether ancient Hindu texts mention nuclear weapons and atomic war. Up to the beholder whether that makes those texts sci-fi or not, I guess.
A surprisingly missing entry is Calcutta Chromosome by Amitav Ghosh. It's oddly good, and is very unique.
The writer talks at length about Bengali SciFi, but misses Ghana Da! The novels and stories are really enjoyable mixture of SF and pulp. Two collections are there in Eglish: The adventures of Ghanada, and Mosquito and Other stories. They are by the author Premendra Mitra/Mitter.
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[ 4.2 ms ] story [ 42.6 ms ] threadAlas, these will have to wait a bit until my next book-funding cycle... I accidentally overdid some Diwali discount book shopping and have a slushpile of about forty scifi titles to work through, and a fiscal deficit to repair :sweat-smile: :D
That said, my extant slushpile has Sci-Fi by contemporary Indian / Indian-origin authors...
Lavanya Lakshminarayan's Interstellar Megachef (next up in the reading Q, along with the Strugatsky brothers).
And SB Divya's books:
I reckon she also presaged some of the demographic / cultural re-workings we are experiencing in the 21st century. Hers was a time of radical social reform and political turmoil in the Indian subcontinent, as well as the world. I suppose many urban intellectuals as well as revolutionaries in the hinterland felt a palpable sense of "hang on, this <insert huge transformation> could actually happen, and we could make it happen".
Fertile ground for all sorts of literary imagination.
The writer talks at length about Bengali SciFi, but misses Ghana Da! The novels and stories are really enjoyable mixture of SF and pulp. Two collections are there in Eglish: The adventures of Ghanada, and Mosquito and Other stories. They are by the author Premendra Mitra/Mitter.