Southasia Review of Books podcast #06: Vajra Chandrasekera on writing fantasy and science fiction from Sri Lanka
Welcome to the Southasia Review of Books Podcast from Himal Southasian, where we speak to celebrated authors and emerging literary voices from across Southasia. In this episode, Shwetha Srikanthan, assistant editor at Himal Southasian, speaks to the Colombo-based author Vajra Chandrasekera about his debut novel The Saint of Bright Doors (July 2023) and his second and most recent novel, Rakesfall (June 2024).
In The Saint of Bright Doors, Vajra paints a vivid picture of a city on the brink – tracing Fetter’s path from child assassin, raised to kill his saintly father to misguided adult with the ability to see devils, anti-gods and magical traces of their world – like the mysterious bright doors. In blending the mundane and fantastical with violence of colonialism, religious control, and the struggles against these systems – the book captures the complex of the power structures that shape us.
But one lifetime is not enough to tell some stories. Rakesfall is a complex portrait of death and reincarnations. This cross-genre science fiction epic, following two souls as they reincarnate and echo across alternative realities, the mythic past to modern Sri Lanka, its long drawn civil war, to a far-future Earth abandoned by humanity. We see how those in power consolidate their hold on society, even to the point of strangling it again and again. It’s about the rise and fall of empires. How every attempt to make imperial power last forever fails and is always vulnerable to rebellion.
At its core, The Saint of Bright Doors and Rakesfall explore the connectedness of struggles for liberation and how they reoccur in different contexts of oppression.
The Saint of Bright Doors has won the Locus, Nebula, and Crawford awards and is a finalist for the 2024 Hugo Award for Best Novel. Vajra’s nonfiction, poetry and over 50 short stories have appeared in magazines and anthologies including Analog, Black Static, Clarkesworld, The Los Angeles Times, among others. He has worked as an editor for Strange Horizons and Afterlives: The Year’s Best Death Stories, and as a judge for the Dream Foundry Writing Contest and the Salam Award.
Episode notes:
‘Redder’ by Vajra Chandrasekera. Nightmare Magazine (August 2020)
‘The Extractivism of Setting and the Traitor’s Text’ by Vajra Chandrasekera
‘Every Throne Will Fall’ by Vajra Chandrasekera
‘Sri Lankan speculative fiction lifts off’ by Gautam Bhatia. Himal Southasian (July 2023)
Mad Sisters of Esi by Tashan Mehta. HarperCollins (September 2023)
The Last Dragoners of Bowbazar by Indrapramit Das. Subterranean Press (August 2023)
The Jinn-Bot of Shantiport by Samit Basu. Tor Books (October 2023)
The Ten Percent Thief by Lavanya Lakshminarayan. Solaris (March 2023)
Interstellar MegaChef by Lavanya Lakshminarayan. Solaris (November 2024)
The Garden of Delights by Amal Singh. Flame Tree Press (May 2024)
The Spice Gate by Prashanth Srivatsa. Harper Voyager (July 2024)
The Siege of Burning Grass by Premee Mohamed. Solaris (March 2024)
Island Witch by Amanda Jayatissa. Berkley (February 2024)
Pilgrim Machines by Yudhanjaya Wijeratne. Aethon Books (September 2024)
First Utterance by Theena Kumaragurunathan. Miragian Studios (October 2020)
‘The Acronym Behind Our Wildest AI Dreams and Nightmares’ by Émile P Torres, Truthdig
The TESCREAL bundle: Eugenics and the promise of utopia through artificial general intelligence by Timnit Gebru Émile P Torres
AI and the threat of “human extinction”: What are the tech-bros worried about? It's not you and me by Émile P Torres
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Southasia Review of Books is a podcast and a monthly newsletter that threads together our latest reviews and literary essays, with curated reading lists and publishing news from around the region.
A new episode of the SaRB Podcast will be available once every four weeks. A special reading list curated by Vajra Chandrasekera will be featured in this month’s SaRB newsletter. You can subscribe to the newsletter here.
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