Where Is International SF?

by Charles Tan

It’s tempting to label this essay as “Third World Science Fiction” but why limit it to the third world? One of the most pleasant surprises the Internet has brought about is the discovery that you’re not alone, especially when it comes to Science Fiction and its related genres (fantasy, interstitial fiction, slipstream, speculative fiction, etc.). Last year, for example, I was thrilled to find out that there was such a thing as The Apex Book of World SF. I’m from the Philippines and friends with the two Filipino contributors so there was a part of me that was shocked that neither of them cared to inform me that they were included in the book! This also led to the discovery of the existence of The World SF News Blog, maintained by the anthology’s editor, Lavie Tidhar. While a part of me was envious, I wanted to be a part of this project. It was a cause that I could be passionate about. After all, one of the reasons I created the Philippine Speculative Fiction Sampler was because I wanted to promote Philippine literature to the rest of the world. With The Apex Book of World SF and the blog, I’d be doing just that, along with other neglected countries–at least by the standards of First World countries, which, unfortunately, dominates the current publishing market (let’s put it this way: if a book gets published in the US by a major publisher, it’ll probably be available in the rest of the world but that’s not the case if the book was published in, say, India, Singapore, or even Australia).

Of course the first thing that I realized when I signed up for The World SF News Blog is how much international fiction has already been translated and made available in the English market. Take for example the following anthologies:

• The Penguin World Omnibus of Science Fiction edited by Brian Aldiss and Sam J Lundwall (1977) (Table of Contents can be found here)
• Travelling Towards Epsilon: An Anthology of French Science Fiction edited by Maxim Jakubowski (1977) (Table of Contents can be found here)
• The World Treasury of Science Fiction edited by David G. Hartwell (1989)
• Whispers from the Cotton Tree Root: Caribbean Fabulist Fiction edited by Nalo Hopkinson (2000) (Table of Contents can be found here)
• Cosmos Latinos: An Anthology of Science Fiction from Latin America and Spain edited by Andrea L. Bell and Yolanda Molina-Gavilan (2003) (Table of Contents can be found here)
• So Long Been Dreaming: Postcolonial Science Fiction & Fantasy edited by Nalo Hopkinson and Uppinder Mehan (2004)
• The Black Mirror and Other Stories: An Anthology of Science Fiction from Germany and Austria edited by Franz Rottensteiner and translated by Mike Mitchell (2008)
  

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