Alternate Visions - Some Musings On Diversity in SF - Vandana Singh Blog Antariksh Yatra

Alternate Visions: Some Musings on Diversity in SF | Antariksh Yatra https://vandanasingh.wordpress.com/2014/05/27/alternate-visions-so...
Antariksh Yatra
Journeys in Space, Time and the Imagination
Alternate Visions: Some Musings on Diversity in SF
I was recently in the remote Alaskan town of Barrow (hp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barrow,_Alaska) for an academic
project. Barrow is profoundly dierent from any place I have been: at 71.3 N latitude, it perches at the edge of the
Arctic Ocean. During April, when I visited, the ocean is frozen as far as you can see. The tundra is white and at,
and there is no vegetation. Most of the people who live there are Inupiat (hp://arcticcircle.uconn.edu
/HistoryCulture/Inupiat/) Eskimos. It is as far removed as you can imagine from Delhi (hp://en.wikipedia.org
/wiki/Delhi), where I grew up, or for that maer, Boston (hp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston), near which city I now
reside.
I was wandering through the bright hallways of Ilisagvik college in Barrow, looking for someone with whom I hoped
to speak, when I found an ecient young administrative assistant. She assured me she would nd the person I was
seeking, and took my name down. As is usual in the US I had to spell it for her. Ive never heard that name before!
she said. Where are you from? There was only curiosity and friendliness in her gaze. I could tell that she was
trying, and failing, to place me. My skin was about the same color as hers, yet I looked dierent. I was clearly not
white, or African-American, and I was certainly not Inupiat, like her. The innocence of her question was such that it
did not occur to me to be oended, and I explained.
She said: Wow! It must be really strange for you to be here.
I must have looked a question as I nodded, because she explained that she had once gone to Washington D.C.
Having lived in Barrow all her life, it was her rst trip south. South! What was it like? It was so weird! she said.
So dierent! After that experience she realized how strange her home would seem to people from other places.
The best speculative ction, like travel, does that to you it takes you to strange places, from which vantage point
you can no longer take your home for granted. It renders the familiar strange, and the strange becomes, for the
duration of the story, the norm. The reversal of the gaze, the journey in the shoes of the Other, is one of the great
promises of speculative ction. Much of the time it doesnt deliver, however. Much of the time you get to go to other
worlds with your feet rmly encased in your own shoes, carrying around your perspectives and prejudices as though
you had never left home.
(hps://vandanasingh.les.wordpress.com/2014/05/alaska2014-076.jpg)
Plane landing over Arctic Ocean, Barrow, Alaska
1 of 22 20/06/2017 6:47 PM
(hps://vandanasingh.les.wordpress.com/2014/05/indiatrip-2014-075.jpg)
View from my parents front verandah near Delhi
This is only one reason why we need diversity in speculative ction. And by diversity I dont just mean white writers
including other places and races in their ction that has its importance, but I dont consider it here. What I am
really interested in is the ction of authors from dierent countries, cultures, races, genders, sexual orientations,
physical abilities and experiences. The former is emphatically not a substitute for the laer. We are still in a
situation where the origin (in a geometrical/ Cartesian sense) of the global SF scene is rmly planted in the West, and
the norm thus dened. Writers from, say, a town near the Gobi desert, or a small town in North India, or people
who are transgender, or blind, or bisexual, to pick a few items from the spectrum of diversity, experience the world
dierently from the norm. If speculative ction is about dealing with otherness, with dierence, then these voices
should be an integral and essential part of the body of speculative ction, not pushed to the margins.
Much has been wrien about diversity in speculative ction lately, by people far more eloquent on the subject, so I
wont repeat too much of what theyve said, other than to acknowledge the debt and to say, go read their essays,
youll learn something. I know I did. Having a high melanin content and no y-chromosomes does not mean one is
naturally well-informed about diversity outside of ones own experience. To understand it is also to recognize it as a
discipline, a subject at the crossroads of multiple academic areas. That exploration, in fact, puts in context ones
personal experiences, giving them a scaolding, so to speak. This aspect of my diversity education is still ongoing,
and I suspect will always be. So in that spirit, here are some links, a fairly random selection of worthy articles, in no
particular order. Please feel free to suggest similar links in the Comments.
Transracial Writing for the Sincere (hp://www.sfwa.org/2009/12/transracial-writing-for-the-sincere) by Nisi Shawl
I Didnt Dream of Dragons by Deepa D (hp://deepad.dreamwidth.org/29371.html)
On Other Cultures and Diversity in SFF (hp://alieedebodard.com/2013/09/13/a-few-disjointed-thoughts-on-other-

cultures-and-diversity-in-s/) by Aliee de Bodard
The many Movements (hp://www.strangehorizons.com/2013/20131118/loenenruiz-c.shtml) columns by Rochita

Loenen-Ruiz in Strange Horizons
Race, Again, Still (hp://www.strangehorizons.com/2011/20110404/shawl-c.shtml)by Nisi Shawl
Escaping Ethnocentricity? (hp://www.strangehorizons.com/2014/20140324/2delany-a.shtml)by Samuel Delany in

Strange Horizons, and the links to other articles therein
Diversity, Appropriation and Writing the Other (hp://www.jimchines.com/2014/05/diversity-appropriation/) by Jim

Hines which also contains numerous links to useful articles
Being Part of Everyones Furniture, or Appropriate Away (hp://www.starshipreckless.com/blog/?p=1811) and

Where Are the Wise Crones in Science Fiction? (hp://www.starshipnivan.com/blog/?p=8714) by Athena Andreadis
2 of 22 20/06/2017 6:47 PM
That Only a Feminist: Reections on Women, Feminism and Science Fiction, (hp://www.ltimmelduchamp.com/sites
/ltimmelduchamp.com/les/essays/genealogy.html) 1818-1960 by L. Timmel Duchamp
And a couple of my own earlier musings, here (hps://vandanasingh.wordpress.com/2009/05/22/some-thoughts-

on-writing-or-not-writing-the-other/) and here (hps://vandanasingh.wordpress.com/2009/05/23/as-others-see-us-
more-on-writing-the-other/).
Diversity in speculative ction is a personal thing to me, not just because of my gender or the color of my skin. The
rst science ction story I ever wrote, when I was maybe nine or ten, had to do with ve people who go o on a
spaceship to have adventures. All these people were white and male. Id never met a white man, yet he was my
default. It took me some time to decolonize my brain to realize that there was a dominant worldview, and that this
was a problematic thing. Slowly, through life experience, books, and people, I began to see that there were
alternative ways of looking at the world all around me, and that cultures and languages gestated and brought forth
these alternatives.
Fast-forward a couple of decades after that forgeable lile story. By then I was an accidental immigrant in the U.S.,
and a writer larva, meeting an agent at my rst writers conference somewhere on the West Coast. Although she
represented authors of both genre and realist ction, she took one look at me and pronounced me a multicultural
writer. Youre a multicultural writer, she said, in the tone of a biologist triumphantly identifying an uncommon
species. Why are you interested in science ction? She went on to say that I should be writing stories about
arranged marriages, saris, spices, the lot.
I was taken aback, and indignant. At the time I was quite shy. I suspect I just goggled at her, aghast, while she swept
on to her next victim.
That was a memorable conference, in part because it included a mini-writers workshop with Ursula Le Guin
(hp://www.ursulakleguin.com/) and Molly Gloss (hp://www.mollygloss.com/). Ursula Le Guin was the reason
why I had decided not just to write science ction but to try to publish my work. When I was a kid growing up in
India, imaginative literature was my staple diet, from Asimov and Clarke to fat lile Hindi pocket books of tall tales.
I came naturally to science ction, eventually discovering Ray Bradbury at around 11 or 12 years of age. I ate it all up
it fed my interest in science, which fed my interest in science ction. Sleeping on the rooftop of my grandparents
house on ne nights, my brother and cousins and I would lie awake, staring into the bowl of the sky, wondering
which of the bright stars had habitable worlds.
But after a while I tired of science ction. Through my teens and early twenties I read other stu mysteries,
serious literature. Then I went to the US for graduate work in physics.
Despite my knowledge of American geography, culture, history and writing, I wasnt prepared for the reality of it.
Everything was dierent, from blades of grass to light switches. It was an astonishing feeling to be so far from home,
on an alien shore. Although I got used to it, that feeling of alienation never quite disappeared. The distance from
home made my old home appear clearer in some respects, more mysterious in others. Questions arose in my mind
that had never occurred to me before.
The only thing that spoke to this experience was science ction. So between teaching and studying and research I
started reading the stu again, sporadically, but something kept bothering me about it that I couldnt articulate.
Later, during my temporary but long absence from academia (after Ph.D. and post-doc) I discovered the works of
Ursula Le Guin. A universe of possibilities exploded at my feet. It occurred to me then that my earlier disaection
from science ction had to do with the fact that there were no people like me in all those imagined futures. Call me
slow, but it took me a long time to gure out this terribly obvious thing. I had clearly internalized the dominance of
the Western cultural mode, in SF and, as I later realized, in a lot of other areas.
What Ursula Le Guins works showed me was that there could be science ction that was about brown or black
people as well as white. But it wasnt just a question of skin color. That there could be other ways of thinking and
being, other philosophies and imperatives in the futures of SF, was a revelation. I had always wanted to write ction,
and had toyed with the idea of writing science ction. But before this Id never thought of writing seriously, writing
because I had, perhaps, something to say to the world.
3 of 22 20/06/2017 6:47 PM
When I wrote my rst science ction story as a young mother living in the US, there were no white men in it. The
story was about a remote Himalayan village where a social-ecological movement was in progress, and it featured an
outcast who, it would turn out, was harboring an alien marooned on our world. It drew upon an experience Id had
when I was seventeen, having just nished high school. I had gone on an expedition to the Himalayas with some
other young people to study the Chipko movement (hp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chipko_movement), a movement
for environment, livelihood, and social justice that had, as its backbone, rural village women.
As I stood on that remote Himalayan hillside and watched a meeting of local villages as I saw a woman speak with
st raised, and the audience of a couple of hundred men and women listen to her a fault line appeared in my
understanding of the world. Later I realized what it was: in the speech of that illiterate village woman, a doyenne of
the Chipko movement, so far from the centers of power, education and modern civilization, Id witnessed a
homegrown, indigenous feminism that owed exactly nothing to, say, Bey Friedan. Somehow over the years Id
absorbed without knowing it this colonial message that to recover from, and grow as successful as the occupying
power, you had to turn to its ideas and its people and its history to make your own shining future, naturally in the
image of that power. The only alternative I knew of was a reactionary one to label all or most aspects of that
colonizing culture bad or evil, and to selectively pick aspects from ones own tradition, inject them with a rigidifying
solution, and label these as good. Not a true alternative, then, but the same paradigm reversed, in which the
colonizers worldview was still the standard, the unit of measure.
My rst short story, which was informed by that Himalayan experience, got me a nice rejection from the editor of a
major American SF magazine and an invitation to keep submiing. The story was never published. But the point is
that it represented my rst aempt to take the origin of the science-ctional coordinate system, uproot it from the
West, and set it in my part of the world.
Around that time I came across an essay by Norman Spinrad in Asimovs magazine, in which he discoursed
knowingly about why there was no third world science ction. Because, he said, third world cultures have no
conception of the future. One could write a thesis on all the things wrong with this: 1) there is, thank you very much,
a third world science ction, some of it with a prey long history, 2) science ction isnt necessarily about the future,
and 3) just like anywhere else, people in the third world do think about the future. That someone could write this in
the 1990s with such a staggering degree of condence was astonishing to me. But it made me think about the
question that had been simmering at the back of my brain since the encounter years ago with the agent who had so
triumphantly labeled me multicultural. Why would someone from the third world write science ction?
Now one might say that question is no longer relevant, seeing that anthologies with diverse authors are now so many
(happily!) that I cant keep up with them. But speculative ction is still nowhere near a level playing eld, and in any
case, each time I explore the question, it gives me a chance to re-arm a position that still has relevance, and nd new
insights.
So, again: Why would someone from the third world write science ction?
Apart from the obvious retort why the bloody hell not? here are some other ways to answer this question.
In So Long Been Dreaming (hp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/So_Long_Been_Dreaming), a groundbreaking anthology

(2004) co-edited by Nalo Hopkinson and Uppinder Mehan, Nalos preface reminds us that:
(hp://nalohopkinson.com/)
Arguably, one of the most familiar memes of science ction is that of going to foreign countries and colonizing the natives for
many of us that is not a thrilling adventure story; its non-ction and we are on the wrong side of the strange-looking ship that
appears out of nowhere. To be a person of colour writing science ction is to be under suspicion of having internalized ones
colonization.
I am proud of the fact that one of my stories is included in this anthology. But whats more important to me is that
when I rst read it, I got to hear the voices of writers from diverse backgrounds, from Native American to Caribbean.
I got to see the universe through multiple lenses that boggled my mind, made me at times uncomfortable (trying to
stand in someone elses shoes should not always be easy) and expanded my imagination. My fellow writers had
taken the contradiction implied in the quote above and showed how you could unbuild the standard issue edice of
science ction with the intelligent adaptation of old tools and introduction of new ones. Add some non-Euclidean
4 of 22 20/06/2017 6:47 PM
structural elements, and put the whole thing together with a dierent aesthetic, an alternative logic, and you have a
very dierent, far more interesting building. Wander through it, look through the windows and try out the furniture,
and it might well leave you a lile changed when you leave.
But why take the trouble to write SF? Well, if it is human to have a sense of wonder with regard to the universe, if it
is human to indulge in imaginative play for the sheer fun of it, and if the third world really is on this planet, and its
denizens also human, then it should be just as natural for someone in Kolkata or La Paz to write SF as anywhere else.
But for those of us who come from once-colonized countries, the writing of SF can hold a particular signicance.
While I was born in a free India, my family was deeply aected by British colonialism. My grandmother took part in
the salt satyagraha. My grandfather and my mother told me stories about what it was like growing up under the
yoke of empire. My paternal grand-uncle developed poor health from his incarceration in a British prison, and died
relatively young as a result, so I never knew him. My maternal grandfather, a policeman, walked away from a
prestigious promotion because he refused an order from his British superiors to re on unarmed protesters. When I
was growing up, my paternal grandfather, a man of great integrity and intelligence, made me aware of various
aspects of the legacy of colonialism from widespread and terrible poverty, to deep and sometimes violent divisions
along religious lines, to the railroad system, to the use of English in the education system and in government. I began
to see, murkily and slowly, that one other eect of colonialism was to bind the imagination, to exclude from
possibility other ways of thinking than that of the conquerors, other dreams, other futures.
Science ction allows us the possibility of transgression. When I wrote the story that got me my rst rejection, I was
beginning to connect with that long-ago experience as a seventeen-year-old, of seeing the world through a dierent
lens that repositioned the origin, the center. Some years after that I experienced an electric shock of recognition when
I read Claude Lalumieres essay Fear of Fiction: Campbells world and Other Obsolete Paradigms
(hp://www.innityplus.co.uk/nonction/fearoction.htm) It validated my own feelings about golden age ction
(what Athena Andreadis (hp://www.starshipreckless.com/) prefers to call leaden-age ction), and my excitement at
the notion that SF could be transgressive; it didnt have to be stuck in the Western-in-Space mode with its problematic
sub-text of conquest and dominion. What other mode of literature exists that can let us construct not just new gizmos
but also new ways of thinking and being? We can use the imagination to come up with alternatives, from energy
sources to social relationships to propulsion systems. In the multidimensional space of possibilities, we can uproot
the origin of the usual 3-d coordinate system and reposition it so that we have the view from dierent places,
dierent races, genders, body types and abilities; we can, to expand on this lovely mathematical analogy, add new
axes, throw away the old Euclidean straight lines and use curvilinear coordinates. Perhaps surng this space of
possibility holds the promise of freeing us from that terrible, invisible, insidious thing: the colonization of the mind,
which remains well after the colonizers have gone home.
That this is still relevant is sadly true today. Consider for instance the current model of development, with its frenetic
pillaging of nite resources, and its wanton lack of regard for both human beings and the environment on which we
depend for such things as, say, breathing. Consider the sadness and irony of a situation in which most people
including some of the poorest and most exploited in the world have no possibility of a livelihood except through
the very industries that have destroyed their environment and their livelihood. Consider that the so called
developing countries like my own are on a rampage to build more malls and high rises, while leaders talk glibly
about lifting millions out of poverty. Consider the monstrous challenge of climate change, and that the great
corpocracy that brought it about still continues along the same destructive path. I once heard a young man in the
local Indian grocery store say that in a few years India could be as developed as the USA, wouldnt it be something to
be proud of? All those malls coming up, and the highways! Who doesnt want them? And I thought about how we
can only see one way to employ people, one way to keep us well fed and comfortable, even if that one way doesnt
reach most people on the planet and destroys the very basis on which life depends. It occurred to me that ultimately
climate change is a problem of the imagination. We cant imagine an alternative economy, alternative social relations
and livelihoods in which we could take care of the earth and each other, and prosper. Instead we invoke false
dichotomies like civilization versus nature, or economy versus environment, and we keep doing the same thing
because we cant, for the life of us, imagine anything dierent.
This is true, of course, in the center of empire as well as in the colonies and former colonies. Which is also another
reason we need people from everywhere to take o their blinkers, their tinted spectacles and special lenses, and
behold the world in its variegated, dizzying, kaleidoscopic richness. To read good speculative ction from multiple
5 of 22 20/06/2017 6:47 PM
perspectives is to get a lile drunk on unfamiliar liquors, so that one can no longer walk straight and oblivious
through the pathways of ones unexamined assumptions. We need to intoxicate the imagination. How else than
through speculative ction, science ction, fantasy that has realized its transgressive potential?
Part of science ctions richness is the fact that it allows us to engage with non-humans, with the physical universe.
The realist genre is so human-centric as to be not only boring but pathologically solipsistic and ultimately false. With
some rare exceptions, much of modern mainstream literature exclusively involves human beings interacting with
human beings in a human-built environment, as though this was even possible. When was the last time you read a
mainstream book in which an animal, or a tree, was a main character? Such themes are, of course, not considered
worthy of adult consumption and are relegated to childrens books. But theres Moby Dick (hp://en.wikipedia.org
/wiki/Moby-Dick), after all. And in the works of Barbara Kingsolver (hp://www.kingsolver.com/), humans interact
not just with each other but also with trees, bueries, insects, birds. So it isnt as though it cant be done, even in
mainstream ction. But SF naturally brings humans into play with the physical universe, and with non-humans.
How refreshing! And how crucial, because here we can re-examine, and delight in, our connection to the non-human
world. And, for those of us from very old cultures, how familiar! Because the great epics I grew up with, like the
Ramayana (hp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramayana) and the Mahabharata (hp://en.wikipedia.org
/wiki/Mahabharata), also portray human drama against the active, interfering, interacting backdrop of the
non-human universe.
India has always had a rich tradition of imaginative literature. From multiple Ramayanas and other epic wonders to
village tall tales, to the embroidered yarns of grandmother storytellers, there has always been a recognition of the
uidity of narrative, of reality itself. The notion is implicit that borders are only suggestions and conveniences,
subject to custom, whim, and social imperative, but constructs, nevertheless. Thus when Anil Menon
(hp://anilmenon.com/) and I decided to edit an anthology of modern-day stories inspired by the Ramayana epic, we
found ourselves reconnecting with something that was already in existence. We were doing something
simultaneously old and new, enabling the multiplying of Ramayanas as others had done in the past. And in fact for
me some of the most liberating and validating experiences of being a writer have been exactly of this kind: to speak,
through my stories, to my own history to converse with, interrogate, give thanks to, or argue with Somadeva
(hp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kathasaritsagara), Premchand (hp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Premchand), Rassundari
(hp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rassundari_Devi), Premendra Mitra (hp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Premendra_Mitra)or
Kalidasa (hp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K%C4%81lid%C4%81sa). To walk in the shoes of an elderly Muslim
mathematics teacher, to see how the world he inhabits might look from his eyes, against a backdrop of mathematical
obsession and sectarian violence, to give voice to a long-dead poet who wandered through the forests of Northern
India collecting stories to soothe his queens troubled heart, to ask a question of Rassundari, who made history by
writing her own history back in the 1800s!
To me this process of engaging with my past, my history, is part of becoming free. For someone from a post-colonial
nation this is a necessary step to complete what happened on August 15, 1947 (hp://en.wikipedia.org
/wiki/Indian_independence_movement), even though I wasnt born until quite a long time after that. And yet
I have sometimes been described as a postcolonial writer. This is true under certain circumstances, in certain
contexts, but it is not all I am. Labels are limiting things. All those years ago the agent who labeled me
multicultural was trying to put me in a box. Of course my writing is informed by my background, but my
background also includes, for instance, physics. Ive come across situations where my being a female with a Ph.D. in
physics has made some men uncomfortable and territorial. Once, as an experiment, I said something overly
self-deprecating about my physics background, and the guy I was talking to, a successful SF writer, quite literally
relaxed. You could see his posture, his facial expression change. He smiled, he sat back in his chair, as though to say
ah, I am still in charge. Inside I was laughing my head o, but I was also a bit horried. Yet this was not an
isolated instance. Time and again Ive come across male writers who feel they dene and own SF, especially hard SF.
Ive had scientic story ideas of mine challenged, not out of curiosity (so how would this work?) but out of an
apparent desire to prove me wrong (this cant work). I enjoy discussing physics aspects that underlie my stories,
am always open to constructive criticism, and arguing amicably can be fun, but when the sub-text is youre female
so what do you know? then I get seriously annoyed. There are also too many women writers Ive come across who
are so turned o science (for very good reasons I suspect) that they dont want to engage with it. One dream I have is
to gather together a bunch of women SF writers from across the diversity spectrum, science types or not, and work
through a bunch of physics ideas, and write stories that redene and broaden and take over hard SF. But that is a rant
6 of 22 20/06/2017 6:47 PM
for another day.
Part of the point I am making about labels being limiting is that postcolonial writers, or multicultural writers are
expected to write only about their backgrounds, to be spokespeople for their countries and cultures. Yet if science
ction is to be truly liberating, and if part of its freedom is to allow us to step into unfamiliar shoes, then there is no
reason why such a writer shouldnt, like Vikram Seth (hp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vikram_Seth), write a story
(hp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/An_Equal_Music) that has nothing to do with his/her background. Why cant I write
about a Russian businessman, or a white Southerner in Texas? Not as default, but as a deliberate and fully informed
choice to explore another reality? Well, of course I can, although Ive been a bit slow to extend myself so far from my
comfort zone. An upcoming story (hp://hieroglyph.asu.edu/project/hieroglyph-anthology/) of mine has the most
international cast Ive ever created white Southerner, Inuit Canadian woman, Indian boy, Brazilian woman, Chinese
man. Writing it scared the hell out of me.
A non-Anglo writer writing about whites, or any other culture not her own, has to abide by the same considerations
as a white writer writing about the Other. Do your research, talk to people, be aware of harboring stereotypes and
assumptions, show your work to multiple people from the group youre writing about. If you make mistakes, admit
them, apologize, and do beer next time. That said, note that a white writer writing about a non-white culture has a
much greater eect than a non-white writer writing about anything. Consider that xenophobic rant, Dan Simmons
Song of Kali (hp://aaahfooey.blogspot.com/2012/09/does-for-india-what-heart-of-darkness.html). Because we live in
an unequal world, that book speaks louder than, say, Premendra Mitras Ghanada tales, set in approximately the
same place. (I suspect that the slew of ne Indian English writing (hp://www.indianeone.com
/16/a_strange_sublime_address_amit_chaudhuri.htm) in the realist genre might have done something to redress the
imbalance there but in SF the situation remains sadly skewed, despite plenty of ne Indian writing in English or in
translation). Consider Kim Stanley Robinsons 2312, on which I wrote a lengthy critique
(hps://vandanasingh.wordpress.com/2013/03/19/why-ksrs-2312-is-a-fail-on-many-counts/) (while not at all a
hate-fest, like the Simmons work, it is deeply problematic). Both the Simmons and Robinson books have won praise,
adulation, and awards.
Identity is a weird thing. It is important to own it, if one so desires, but also to recognize its multiplicity, and its
context-dependence. In this is our freedom. I dont just mean that a postcolonial writer might also be a scientist. In
this country I am part of a racial/ ethnic minority. But I am also economically advantaged (denitely not rich, being a
college professor, but doing all right) and physically able. In India I happen also to be upper caste (somewhat
compromised by my parents inter-caste marriage) although this maers far less in Delhi than in a small town in
Bihar. I am also part of the highly educated intelligentsia, which means I have a whole lot of privilege in that
regard. Being aware of this, I must tread carefully when I am in a situation where these things maer. So I wear
many hats, but I need not wear all of them all the time. When I am walking in the woods or across elds, and there
are no other humans around, my being Indian, or female, or even human, doesnt maer. It is freeing to sometimes be
simply an animal walking in the forest.
So, to sum up, we foreigners, interlopers, aliens, we write SF for as many reasons as there are stars in the sky. I cant
speak for everyone, so here are my thoughts as to why some of us might write SF, and why diversity in SF is
absolutely necessary:
a) Despite our important dierences, we are also human, susceptible to wonder, to the creative impulse. If you
prick us, do we not bleed?
b) We need to be comfortable with moving our coordinate systems around so that we can see the world, the
universe, from multiple gazes and perspectives
c) SF allows us to question, to challenge, to bring into visibility our belief structures, our assumptions about
ourselves and the world; for writers from post-colonial nations to imagine their own futures, their own alternatives,
is a deeply revolutionary, freeing act
d) We need new paradigms, new ways of relating to the non-human universe, if we are to survive the climate
crisis. The postcolonial, so called third world nations, and indigenous communities within the rst world are
7 of 22 20/06/2017 6:47 PM
being/will be most deeply aected by climate change, despite having done the least to cause the problem. SF gives us
the tools to write those other paradigms into being.
e) We can reconnect with the kind of literature some of us grew up with, the oldest works in the world in which
humans interacted with rocks, trees, stars, animals, demons and tree spirits, and not just with each other. Modern
literatures obsession with the exclusively human is a sign of a deep malaise, apart from being uerly boring and
unrealistic.
f) SFs mandate to extend the imagination, so we can walk, even if uncomfortably, in the shoes of others, also
allows us to wriggle out of categories and pigeon-holes. I might be a postcolonial writer under some lights, but
under other illuminations, watch out! I might be something else entirely.
Finally I want to say a few words about language. There is a corollary to Nalo Hopkinsons quote above. If science
ction must be subverted to avoid internalizing our colonization, what of English? Those of us who write in English
how can we realize the revolutionary potential of SF, the freedom implicit within it, if we write in the tongue of the
colonizers? Is it even possible to do so? And if so, surely we have to do something to the way English is wrien, to
change the tools, to unbuild the House of the SF Establishment?
To begin with, I believe that works in English cannot substitute for works in the languages of writers from diverse
linguistic origins. I rst got a sense of this when I read an English translation of a story by the great classic Hindi
short story writer, Premchand. The translation was competent, but much had been lost compared to the original
story. I thought about this again some years later, when I read Gabriel Garcia Marquez (hp://en.wikipedia.org
/wiki/Gabriel_Garc%C3%ADa_M%C3%A1rquez) and Pablo Neruda (hp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pablo_Neruda) in
translation. Even in translation they blew my mind, and changed the way I thought about language; but it made me
wonder what I was missing. So it is important for people to keep writing and publishing in their own languages. But
cross-pollination is necessary too. Because English is the dominant language in the world, translation, for all its
drawbacks, then becomes crucial, if we are to read those works and be inuenced by them. We need a global SF
conversation, and if it has to be conducted mostly in English on the world stage, so be it, even if we can only chat in
our separate courtyards in Tamil, or Chinese, or Portuguese. For me reading in Hindi is necessary to maintain my
sanity, even if I dont get the time to read as much as Id like. I also write a lile in Hindi, solely for myself. Ones
rst language is such a personal, essential thing, as Ive wrien about in this older blog post about drowning in
English. (hps://vandanasingh.wordpress.com/2009/05/22/an-essay-on-drowning/)
Having said this, however, for me English is not a foreign language. Considering the number of English dialects in
India, and its co-existence with the 18 other languages of the subcontinent, and the fact that I learned it only a few
years after Hindi, it feels to me like an old coat, comfortable and familiar. It is, to me, beautiful in its myriad forms, in
its astonishing adaptability. Yet the fact that I write primarily in English now is a source of discomfort. I think it is
important for me to engage with that discomfort. I have not yet experimented with the language very much in my
writing, to see what new tools I might forge by using it dierently others have done that, and done that well. Ive
sometimes used Hindi words if the situation called for them. When my childrens book, Younguncle Comes to Town
(hp://www.amazon.com/Younguncle-Comes-Town-Vandana-Singh/dp/8186706968/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&
qid=1401145756&sr=8-1&keywords=younguncle+comes+to+town), was published in the U.S., one critic complained
about the frequent use of unexplained Hindu words. I found this extremely irritating, not only because hed mixed
up the language and the religion, but also because he wanted everything to be clearly explained and handed to him
on a plaer as though that was his due. I remember struggling with English words and idioms when I was a kid, and
ultimately guring out their meanings from context. Others can do the same. It is a good exercise. People who come
across words in an unfamiliar language, such as the Spanish in Junot Diazs The Brief, Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
(hp://www.amazon.com/Brief-Wondrous-Life-Oscar-Wao/dp/1594483299/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&
qid=1401145814&sr=1-1&keywords=junot+diaz), might consider embracing that discomfort and seeing what it does
for them. They might also consider that in speaking, even for a moment, in his or her own tongue, the author could
be exercising a hard-won freedom. The current discussion at Strange Horizons (hp://www.strangehorizons.com
/blog/2014/05/on_dialect.shtml) explores these issues beer than I can here, but I want to point out one other
important thing. Words in foreign languages arent just window-dressing. They can signify much more.
During my trip to Alaska I had the privilege of speaking with an Inupiat elder and intellectual, a Ph.D. in education,
8 of 22 20/06/2017 6:47 PM
who spoke eloquently about language. Her language, Inupiaq, is still spoken, but mostly by elders. A concerted
eort is under way to teach it and popularize it among the young. She told me how certain words had become rare
in usage, because the contexts, the concepts associated with those words had disappeared.
One might use this as an analogy to argue for the inclusion of words from other languages in a work of English.
Some things are untranslatable directly, because the context does not exist in English. How to make the context come
alive? Write a story, and bring to life the words that are appropriate to that situation. May a thousand worldviews
bloom.
The situation with regard to diversity in speculative in the US appears, from my personal experience at least, to be
shifting. When I rst started geing published, back in the early 2000s, I felt very much alone. When I went to cons, I
was the only brown face, standing awkwardly in corners, geing ignored or stared at. Some of it, I think, had to do
with the fact that I wore Indian clothes, which I like to do whenever I can. (India might be among the last places in
the world where indigenous clothing has survived and thrived alongside jeans and t-shirts). Gradually things
started changing. The rst African-American writer I discovered was Octavia Butler, and I still remember the
mixture of wonder and relief when I read Parable of the Sower, and my inarticulate awe when I met her at
Readercon. But then there were other people and their stories the ever-inspiring Nisi Shawl
(hp://www.nisishawl.com/), and later, the irrepressible Andrea Hairston (hp://www.andreahairston.com
/chrysalistheatre/chrysalis-about.php), and courageous and enterprising people like Sheree Thomas
(hp://www.strangehorizons.com/2009/20090216/brisse-a.shtml), and K. Tempest Bradford
(hp://tempest.uidartist.com/), and even later, a contingent of young, ercely intelligent black writers who came
along and turned upside down all the conventions of fantasy Nnedi Okarafor (hp://nnedi.com/), N. K. Jemisin
(hp://nkjemisin.com/), Alaya Dawn Johnson (hp://www.alayadawnjohnson.com/), to name a few. I read about
alternate Russia through Kathy Sedia (hp://www.ekaterinasedia.com/)s marvelous literary inventions, and
wandered through Angelica Gorodischers Kalpa Imperial, (hp://www.strangehorizons.com/2004/20040119
/kalpa.shtml) courtesy of translator Ursula Le Guin. Mary Anne Mohanraj (hp://www.mamohanraj.com
/index.php)burst upon the world and started Strange Horizons (hp://www.strangehorizons.com/), which is still
going strong today. Sometime later, Lavie Tidhar (hp://lavietidhar.wordpress.com/) and Charles Tan (hp://charles-
tan.blogspot.com/p/about-me.html) started the World SF blog (hp://worldsf.wordpress.com/); Michael Iwoleit
(hp://iwoleit.wordpress.com/) and colleagues took their edgling international SF zine to the next level and
Internova (hp://nova-sf.de/internova/) came online. Feminist SF took o with Aqueduct Press
(hp://www.aqueductpress.com/) and Timmi Duchamp (hp://ltimmelduchamp.com/), bringing immensely
readable, thoughtful, intelligent works into being. The Carl Brandon Society (hp://www.carlbrandon.org/) was
formed to increase racial and ethnic diversity in SF.
I will never forget the Boston Worldcon where I met, for the rst time ever, a fellow Indian and a brother Anil
Menon (hp://anilmenon.com/), whose science-ctional imagination and generosity I greatly admire, to say nothing
of the fact that he is a walking encyclopedia. Then, I could not have imagined that a few years later he and I would,
along with Suchitra Mathur (hp://home.iitk.ac.in/~suchitra/), a professor at IIT Kanpur, conduct an SF workshop in
India (hp://anilmenon.com/blog/2009-indian-sf-workshop-at-iit-k-part-1-geing-there/) that would draw forth the
considerable talents of a new generation of Indian writers. Or that we would co-edit an anthology together
(hp://chieandweng.wordpress.com/2014/05/23/a-process-conversation-with-anil-menon-and-vandana-singh/), and
some of our authors and others would go on to make a mark in major ezines and Years Best volumes Indrapramit
Das (hp://indra-das.avors.me/), Aishwarya Subramanian (hp://www.practicallymarzipan.com/blog), Swapna
Kishore (hp://swapnawrites.com/). Now there are so many Indian SF authors from India and abroad that I know I
am leaving out several names even when I list only the ones writing in English: Shweta Narayan
(hp://shwetanarayan.org/), Manjula Padmanabhan (hp://marginalien.blogspot.com/), Rimi_B._Chaerjee
(hp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rimi_B._Chaerjee), Payal Dhar (hp://writeside.net/), Priya Chabria
(hp://priyawriting.com/wordpress/ction/generation-14/), Amish (hp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amish_Tripathi),
Samit Basu (hp://samitbasu.com/). Arvind Mishra (hp://indiasciarvind.blogspot.com/) and other Hindi writers
have been having national SF conferences for a while in India, keeping the eld dynamic, and translations are
happening gradually. Strange Horizons, ahead of other venues, as always, has paid a lot of aention to diversity in
SF, including hosting a special on Indian SF (hp://strangehorizons.com/2013/20130930/).
There are new writers from what were once far-ung places changing and enriching SF, rebuilding the Edice with
new tools and sensibilities a contingent of writers from Asia and the diaspora such as Aliee de Bodard
9 of 22 20/06/2017 6:47 PM
(hp://alieedebodard.com/), deservedly winning some of the most coveted awards in SF, writing stories that knock
ones socks o, such as Immersions. Joining Dean Francis Alfar (hp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dean_Francis_Alfar)
from the Philippines we now have stories and columns by Rochita Loenen-Ruiz (hp://rcloenenruiz.com/)
illuminating that landscape, and I appreciate her articulation of the struggles to nd ones voice and to be heard. Ken
Liu (hp://kenliu.name/) not only writes startlingly graceful stories but translates a number of Chinese writers, some
of whose works (hp://clarkesworldmagazine.com/chen_08_11/) I will not forget easily. Today I might contribute to
an anthology such as End of the Road (hp://www.amazon.com/The-End-Road-Anthology-Original/dp/1781081549),
and discover in its pages that my neighbors include not just my old pal Anil, but also new names writing kick-ass
stories: Zen Cho (hp://zencho.org/), Benjanun Sriduangkaew (hp://beekian.wordpress.com/). (See here
(hp://carriecuinn.com/2013/06/18/list-94-asian-speculative-ction-authors-with-links/) for a long list of Asian spec c
writers). Joining this vocal international contingent is Soa Samatar (hp://www.soasamatar.com/), with an African-
Middle-Eastern background, who writes unforgeable, richly textured tales. Ive only begun to discover the works of
Daniel Jose Older (hp://ghoststar.net/), Saladin Ahmed (hp://www.saladinahmed.com/), and Sabrina Vourvoulias
(hp://followingthelede.blogspot.com/). For the rst time there are so many writers of diverse backgrounds that I
cant keep up with them. And when I read them, I am rendered sockless with wonder and delight. And yet there are
not enough, they are still marginalized, and the gates of the establishment have opened but a lile.
I dont mean to imply, by the way, that the diversication of SF needs to happen at the expense of canonical Anglo
literature, in and out of SF. Theres plenty of room at the table. I love the elegant precision of Jane Austen
(hp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane_Austen)s language, the wit and passion of Shakespeare (hp://en.wikipedia.org
/wiki/William_Shakespeare), the terror and gorgeousness in Ray Bradburys (hp://www.raybradbury.com/) works.
But its time to make room and let others have some space. Besides, think of the conversations we might have if the
playing eld was level. I can talk to any white reader or writer of literature in English about Shakespeare, or quote
Byron and Keats from memory, or discuss reasonably intelligently Bradburys Martian Chronicles. But they cannot
talk to me about the poetry of Ghalib (hp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghalib), or quote from Kalidasa
(hp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K%C4%81lid%C4%81sa), or relate the pivotal beginning scene in the Ramayana
(hp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramayana), even in translation; its likely theyve never even heard of them. Similarly I
am quite ill-informed about the literatures of China, Laos, Mongolia, Paraguay, and most of the rest of the world,
because my education system, a legacy of British rule, focused on what was considered to be important; what lile I
know is from my own reading. Now I look for good translations all the time. Imagine, if we knew more about each
others literary heritages, how we might converse! How we might inuence each other!
And indeed the presence of so many SF writers from all over has made it easier to ask questions and consult, and
learn, if one wants to set a story in an unfamiliar place; Ive beneted from the generosity of Fabio Fernandes
(hp://www.racialicious.com/2012/05/29/interview-fabio-fernandes-on-we-see-a-dierent-frontier-project-
culturelicious/) for a story set in Brazil, and Miguel Esquirol (hp://sportal.net/2010/10/bolivia-a-sci--country/) for
one in Bolivia (all responsibility for any shortcomings in the stories being mine alone, of course). Now we have new
writers and editors who have sought to change things by deliberately seeking alternate visions, such as Athena
Andreadis, whose feminist space opera anthology (hp://www.starshipnivan.com/blog/?p=6836) I am honored to be
part of, and whose insights never fail to educate me. There have been so many racefail and genderfail conversations
in SF, and I have learned so much from them even by being on the sidelines, that I can only say thank you for your
time and intelligence and anger, you gave me strength. Ive learned a lot more about other underrepresented groups
through those forums from people with disabilities to the non-binarily gendered. It would have been so much
harder without the many allies of diversity in SF, not just writers but editors who put together interesting anthologies
that sought out dierent voices, now too many to name, but including Alex Dally MacFarlane
(hp://www.alexdallymacfarlane.com/) and Je (hp://www.jevandermeer.com/)and Ann VanderMeer
(hp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ann_VanderMeer). At a personal level, writer friends who have supported me: Sarah
Smith (hp://www.sarahsmith.com/), Shariann Lewi (hp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shariann_Lewi), Pam Schossau,
Kurt Kremer (hp://zephyr98.com/), Steve Shervais (hp://foundonweb.wordpress.com/) remain crucial to my
literary survival.
So, heres to celebrating the new SF world, and heres to acknowledging how much more work needs to be done.
Lets keep calling out instances of narrow bigotry, of suppression of marginalized voices. Lets keep talking, being
honest, owning what we write, owning up when we mess up. Lets keep using words from our mother tongues, our
other tongues, so that those unused to it can get at least a glimpse of the world from our various perspectives.
10 of 22 20/06/2017 6:47 PM
And most of all, lets keep writing. Theres too much hatred in this world, from trigger-happy troubled souls who go
on shooting sprees because they hate women (hp://hp://online.wsj.com/news/articles
/SB10001424052702303403604579584592650241318), as has just happened in California, to greed-fueled war machines
all over the world. Even in the midst of heartache, especially in heartache, our words maer.
As the poet Faiz (hp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faiz_Ahmad_Faiz) said,
Ye Daag Daag Ujala, ye Shab Gazeeda Seher

Wo Intizar tha Jiska, Yeh wo Seher tu Nahin
Abhi Chiraghe Sare Rah Ko kuch khabar Hi Nahin.

Abhi Giraniay Shab Men kami Nahin Aii
Najate` Deeda o Dil ki Ghadi Nahim Aii
Chalay Chalo-ke` Wo Manzil Abhi Nahin Aii.
Roughly translated:
This blemished radiance, this night-stung dawn,
Is not the dawn we waited for.
Now, there is no hint of the end of the road
No ceasing of the darkness of the night
The time when our hearts and minds will be liberated
Is not here yet
Keep going, for our destination is still ahead.
And because it is hard to keep going, sometimes, let me end with the poet Sahir Ludhianvi (hp://en.wikipedia.org
/wiki/Sahir_Ludhianvi):
Parvat parvat, basti basti gaata jaye banjara
Le ke dil ka ektara
Over mountains, across selements, singing goes the wanderer
Carrying within him the lute of his heart.
May our wanderings be fruitful, and our songs heard.
This entry was posted on May 27, 2014 at 12:10 am and is led under Diversity, science ction, Writing. You can
follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own
11 of 22 20/06/2017 6:47 PM
site.
86 Responses to Alternate Visions: Some Musings on Diversity in SF
saari raat aahein bharta, pal pal yaadon mein marta | optional Says:
May 27, 2014 at 1:15 am | Reply
[] things: amazing post by Vandana Singh on diversity in SF. I like that kind of post because its so kind and []
asakiyume Says:
May 27, 2014 at 1:59 am | Reply
Lovely essay. I enjoyed the entire thing, but especially the introductory story, which sets the context for the rest of
the essay so well.
vsinghsblog Says:
May 27, 2014 at 11:19 pm | Reply
Thank you! It was hard work but a lot of fun to write it.
Anil Menon Says:

May 27, 2014 at 3:02 am | Reply
Enjoyed reading the essay, Vandana. Your idea that diversity is a good thing because itll make for richer
conversations is appealing. And all the new names gave me the sense the tides turned. Two comments:
1. My take on the lack of diversity is that the problem is mostly of supply and distribution, not demand or bias.
For example, there was this debate about the lack of women writers in spec-c and I think the aggregated
magazine submission data showed women were submiing in far fewer numbers than men. This could be a
generic paern for why things are under-represented. Theres also not enough outlets. So we see the same kind of
stories in the same sort of situations being wrien and rewrien.
2. I think the great danger to diversity isnt prejudice or old ways of doing thing, but a new way of doing things,
namely, universalism. Weve all been gently led to accept that there are such things as universal moral values or
universal conceptions of the good life or universal ways of organizing commercial activity eciently, etc. For
example, its a standard rhetorical strategy for every American president. Furthermore, since Science is interested
in the general, it is often the Trojan horse used to sneak in this idea. For example, an economist might tacitly
assume that the concept of a free market is independent of location or culture. That free markets are a universal
paern. So on and so forth. Universalism itself isnt the problem; the problem is that under the cover of
universalism, key local dierences, gloriously inconvenient, can be wiped out. I think what Im trying to say is
that we can be supercially diverse, yet be depressingly homogeneous at the level of gears and mainsprings. We
then have the odd paradox of diversity without any dierences making a dierence.
vsinghsblog Says:
May 27, 2014 at 11:35 pm | Reply
Hi Anil,
Thanks for your comments, and thanks especially for reading the very drafty rst draft of this piece. With
regard to your comments,
1) Yes, I do agree that there is a supply and distribution problem, although plain and simple bias does exist
too. But ultimately even the supply and distribution issue has to do with inequalities in the society in which
we live. Why dont very many women submit as write? Perhaps it is the second shift work plus home
responsibilities and no time for oneself. Perhaps it is the lack of appreciation for womens voices. Theres also
the well documented issue of womens ction not geing reviewed as much as ction wrien by men. See for
instance the 2013 SF count at Strange Horizons.
2) I nd this point really interesting and deserving of its own post do write one! We see a lot of
12 of 22 20/06/2017 6:47 PM
generalizations made in many dierent situations. When the generalizations are made by the dominant or
powerful, they can, as you say, wipe out key dierences and blind us to the importance of context Its
interesting that science is misused in this manner since in the physical sciences at least we learn that there are
very few truly general physical laws.
One example that comes to mind is the racial diversity in Star Trek, more so in the later series. While it is
important to see people of ones race going o to the stars, for the most part those characters of colour acted no
dierently from the white characters. They only looked dierent. So the diversity was supercial at the level
of worldview or paradigm, there was the depressing and unquestioned homage to homogeneity that you
mention.
I think this is so VERY important and I hope you write more about it.
sedwith Says:
September 21, 2014 at 1:10 am | Reply
Excellent points! Local dierence is certainly seen as incovenient and true diversity isnt embraced within the
active implementation of universality.. a critical point of example is also in the concept of human rights and
the lack of Western patience with economic rights in free markets that spread unfair benet. I love the last
point about the odd paradox of diversity.viva la dierence!
Joseph Nebus Says:

May 27, 2014 at 4:47 am | Reply
Ive found myself growing (I hope) more open to and more sensitive to the diversity of the world by the prey
happy process of moving to new places and geing the sense of perspective that implies rst to a dierent
state, then to a dierent continent. Ive yet to live anywhere where English wasnt a primary language, and feel
like thats limiting my experience in important ways, but I dont see that Im able to change that in the near future.
I like to think its made me a beer reader, at least, though without helping me to write any beer.
vsinghsblog Says:
May 27, 2014 at 11:44 pm | Reply
Hi Joseph, thanks for writing. I think awareness of the possibility of dierent perspectives is key. There are
people who move halfway across the planet, or travel somewhere dierent, but remain inside the invisible
bubble of their assumptions and prejudices. Thats probably because they dont even realize that there are
other ways to be in and think about the world. Obviously they miss a lot. I think there is something to be said
for the aitude of the traveler as student, with the requisite humility and openness that is needed to truly learn
something. I think it is inevitable that the shift in perspective will, at some point, aect your writing as well as
your reading. I wish you luck in your adventure!
Alternate Visions | INF2010 ThinkySpace Says:

May 27, 2014 at 5:59 pm | Reply
[] and totally related to the Mudimbe piece: Vandana Singh, a science ction author from India writes a great
article on writing diversity. Here she talks about how internalizing an colonial, dominant power (and the []
Siddhartha Says:
May 28, 2014 at 5:23 am | Reply
With your permission, I would like to share a small anecdote about reading diverse stories. I grew up reading a lot
of SF, mostly Bangla with occasional translations from other Indian languages (I was and still am a huge fan of
Jayant Vishnu Narlikars stories). My rst epiphany came when I read Asimov and realised how it was quite
dierent from what I was used to.
Asimov was the rst Multicultural Writer (what en endearingly idiotic term!) for me, because he came from a
culture that I knew nothing about. He was my gateway to reading English language SF. Then I discovered Clarke,
then Bradbury and then a whole lot others.
Whenever I see discussions on diversity, I am tempted to tell this story. Have people forgoen the joy of
discovering Asimov / Bradbury / Le Guin / [insert your favourite author here] for the rst time? They are limiting
13 of 22 20/06/2017 6:47 PM
your chance if they do not actively seek out and read stories by people who are dierent from them.
Sorry about the rant.
vsinghsblog Says:
May 30, 2014 at 5:04 am | Reply
Dear Siddhartha,
Great anecdote! It is a wonderful example of the relativity of normal. Please keep ranting!
Midweek Link Love: Seen. Read. Heard. No Inside Voice Says:

May 28, 2014 at 5:44 pm | Reply
[] Also, theres a lot going on in the SFF community about diversity. I often remain silent because frankly an
abundance of melanin does not equate to an abundance eloquence on the topic. What I know about the
importance of diversity in ction I know in my heart, and in my own experience. That doesnt always translate
well into words. One might argue that as a writer, thats my challenge. The truth is Im not there yet. Thankfully
there are others out there who are speaking my heart, even if I cant yet nd the words. Start on Twier
with #WeNeedDiverseBooks and then for as specic slant into the conversation in genre, check out Vandana
Sings Musings on Diversity in SF. []
Lee Says:
May 29, 2014 at 8:55 pm | Reply
I nd this essay valuable for 2 reasons: (1) its outstanding in and of itself, and (2) youve provided me a virtual
shopping list of new authors to explore! (Ive already marked Younguncle Comes to Town for my next
book-shopping spree.) Thank you.
vsinghsblog Says:
May 30, 2014 at 5:04 am | Reply
Thank YOU, Lee! Enjoy the new authors works and let me know what you think of Younguncle!
Writing Process Blog Tour The Middle Way Says:

May 30, 2014 at 2:48 am | Reply
[] primarily POC and my stories to some degree draw on my experience as a member of the diaspora.
Representation and diversity are important to me, but they were never something I sought out or noticed as a
younger []
Friday! | Gerry Canavan Says:

May 30, 2014 at 1:16 pm | Reply
[] * Alternate Visions: Some Musings on Diversity in SF. []
arvind mishra Says:

May 30, 2014 at 2:17 pm | Reply
A read rst of its kind I must admit -an essay which shall be remembered for long owing to its free hand style and
my God how much researching and studies you would have done before penning this excellent writeup! Diversity
part is true -Sf is a genre of unfamiliar setups ,locations , people and resulting diversity is therefore quite obvious
-but there is a unity in diversity too! You yourself have beautifully unied all the diverse aspects of Sf here
-however diverse the genre may be in context to land, people and culture but there are no doubt many common
features of Sf being wrien all over the world! SF in essence is a genre depicting unity in diversity like the Indian
culture!
vsinghsblog Says:
May 31, 2014 at 4:11 am | Reply
Arvindji, so glad you enjoyed reading. It would be interesting to explore the commonalities within SF too,
across the diversity spectrum. Another blog post for another day!
theblakeyguy18 Says:
May 30, 2014 at 4:11 pm | Reply
Reblogged this on My Personal, Professional and Spiritual Development Review Blog.
14 of 22 20/06/2017 6:47 PM
Help Moving To California Says:

May 30, 2014 at 6:56 pm | Reply
Reblogged this on Help Moving To California.
Friday! | Gaia Gazee Says:

May 30, 2014 at 10:51 pm | Reply
[] * Alternate Visions: Some Musings on Diversity in SF. []
John Says:
May 31, 2014 at 12:01 am | Reply
Reblogged this on jpra27 and commented:
Great read. Thank you.
uns0b Says:
May 31, 2014 at 1:57 am | Reply
the reversal of the gaze is powerful
vsinghsblog Says:
June 7, 2014 at 4:04 am | Reply
Yes, indeed.
Ariana Says:
May 31, 2014 at 3:27 am | Reply
Wonderful story of your journeys.
vsinghsblog Says:
Thank you, Ariana!
Ariana Says:
May 31, 2014 at 3:28 am | Reply
Reblogged this on Ariana Afsanay de Ly and commented:
This is a wonderful story of going beyond what you know. Enjoy
nadanparindaa Says:
May 31, 2014 at 5:19 am | Reply
hps://nadanparindaa.wordpress.com
View , read and help
habibilamour Says:
May 31, 2014 at 7:27 am | Reply
WTF? MY best friend is Indian (but lived in Australia since she was 10) and although shes always cooking with
spices and will wear a sari on special occasions, she will not have an arranged marriage! She seems to have no
interest in marriage anyways..also, diversity should include childfree perspectives too, well for some of us it is
an orientation.
vsinghsblog Says:
Stereotypes are annoying, arent they? What I found annoying was not so much the suggestion of writing
about spices and saris and arranged marriages but the assumption that those things dened the limits of what
I could write. It can be an interesting exercise to unpack spices and saris and arranged marriages too (for
instance there are dierent ways of arranging marriages, and they are not all bad by denition) but if I want to
write about spaceships, with or without saris, then, dammit, I will! I salute your best friend, and of course you
are right about the diversity of womens choices, including the choice to remain child-free. Thanks,
habibilamour!
Sally Ember, Ed.D. Says:
15 of 22 20/06/2017 6:47 PM
May 31, 2014 at 6:25 pm | Reply

Reblogged this on Sally Ember, Ed.D. and commented:
LOVE this! Thanks, Antariksh Yatra!!
thesciencegeek Says:
May 31, 2014 at 9:23 pm | Reply
Really enjoyed this article. I am absolutely astonded by the part of your post about Norman Spinrad essay. It
must have made you so angry India has so much to oer;
The Science Geek
hp://thesciencegeek01.wordpress.com/
vsinghsblog Says:
Yes, after I got over the initial shock, there was smoke coming out of my ears, metaphorically speaking!
squiggles Says:
Reblogged this on Driftwood.
zeenablid18 Says:
Reblogged this on zeenablid18.
michaelhodges3 Says:
Very interesting. (Although I must admit, I skipped the middle part). I think that the failure of imagination you
talk about, a failure to put ourself in the shoes of someone very dierent, also applies to historical ction, and
indeed to historical drama. I think there has been progress in recent years, but all too often, historical writing
depicts modern people dressed up in period costume. Thanks for writing this post
vsinghsblog Says:
True. I havent read all that much historical ction and I dont have the expertise to detect mistakes, but some
stories have such blatant errors that even I cringe. Modern sensibilities among peoples from older eras,
without the justication of special circumstances, also throw me right out of the book.
rajmohan322 Says:
June 1, 2014 at 12:39 pm | Reply
Reblogged this on rajmohan322.
w6bky Says:
Science and Fiction are strange bedfellows in some ways, and I revel in the results of this strange
combination.
Having been a reader of SiFi since my early teens (that would be about 65 years) I have enjoyed watching much of
the ction becoming science as we continue to make new discoveries in science and technology.
Enjoyed your blog post thanks for all the links.
vsinghsblog Says:
Thanks, w6bky! Glad you enjoyed the post! Perhaps well have jet packs and space elevators some day
James Nicoll Says:

Around that time I came across an essay by Norman Spinrad in Asimovs magazine, in which he discoursed knowingly about
why there was no third world science ction.
16 of 22 20/06/2017 6:47 PM
He wrote something similarly bone-headed in 2010
hp://tinyurl.com/nzjhl88
but this time the reaction was such that Asimovs quietly replaced with a dierent version:
hp://www.asimovs.com/issue_1004-05/onbooks.shtml
vsinghsblog Says:
Ugh. Boneheaded indeed. Thanks for the reference, although it made me cringe!
Eleanor Arnason Says:

Really enjoyed this essay.
vsinghsblog Says:
Thanks, Eleanor, that means a lot to me.
Sonia Lal Says:

Wonderful essay.
vsinghsblog Says:
Thank you, Sonia! Glad you enjoyed it.
boyzmaa Says:
I am siing here both breathless and sockless! Loved your essay.
vsinghsblog Says:
Thanks, boyzmaa! Hope your feet are warm wherever you are!
erinlale Says:
From my perspective as the acquisitions editor at a genre novel publisher, I nd the three greatest challenges to
publishing authors from countries other than US/UK are 1. I rarely receive any to consider 2. When I do receive
them, sometimes the mss. is wrien in a world English that would need to be changed to be published in
American English, and Id personally rather reject it outright than tell the author to change it (we change UK
English to American English, too. Its part of the house style.) 3. When I do receive them, sometimes the author
has populated her story entirely with white male Americans (and it is usually clear the author only knows
American culture from TV and prey much everything sounds inauthentic.) On the other hand, when I do receive
a mss. that includes an authentic voice from a less familiar culture which stands up against the best mss. Ive
received that week, its exciting, and the mss. will stand out from the pack as unique, so its more likely to catch
my aention and be published.
vsinghsblog Says:
It is interesting to hear the insider view from the editors desk. Thank you. Ive come to believe that diversity
must be actively sought by editors and publishers in order to enrich the eld. I know too many writers who
are absolutely incredible (see for instance here: hps://vandanasingh.wordpress.com/2009/07/04/journey-
to-kanpur-days-one-and-two-of-sf-workshop-at-iit/ who are as yet unknown. And yes, there is a lot of crappy
derivative stu but isnt that true of submissions from all kinds of places and people?
stargazer Says:
17 of 22 20/06/2017 6:47 PM

Thanks so much for writing this really good piece. There is so much here to engage with. I am especially
interested in your points about how the colonial project continues by colonising our thinking, and so severely
limiting alternatives for social, cultural, economic, ecological and political progress. I also nd it maddening when
a host of social and development issues are repeatedly treated with the same failed solutions.
I too am from India originally (grew up in Australia) and have always been fascinated by the possibilities of
science-ction, but increasingly uninspired by the lack of imagination on oer. With a such a broad and limitless
canvas to paint on, its disappointing to see the limits that writers place on their creations. So, thanks for
mentioning writers from so many other backgtedrounds. I look forward to reading their work.
vsinghsblog Says:
Thanks, stargazer. Well always have those repeats of failed solutions when the paradigms that underlie them
remain unchallenged. And yes, science ction has not realized its potential yet but, with so many diverse
voices beginning to be heard, I am hopeful.
Links: 06/06/14 The Radish. Says:

[] Alternate Visions: Some Musings on Diversity in SF []
Lynn Says:
I am very excited to learn of all these authors of diverse cultures. I have tended to just stumble upon one and then
not nd other for a long time. I love seeing the perspective and culture of writers from dierent cultures. And I
loved seeing someone come and actually get the real scoop from Alaska! Usually people guess and it is so far o.
Great article! -from a part Inupiaq woman in Alaska
vsinghsblog Says:
Thanks for writing, Lynn! Alaska was such a deep learning experience for me. You might be interested in my
academic blog, where I have some posts about my visit. hps://climatechange4perspectives.wordpress.com/.
My next post there will be about Barrow.
whataboutemmanay Says:
January 13, 2016 at 10:14 am | Reply
Heres a TED talk on a similar topic that I think you may enjoy! hp://www.ted.com/talks
/ann_morgan_my_year_reading_a_book_from_every_country_in_the_world?utm_medium=on.ted.com-
android-share&utm_content=ted-androidapp&awesm=on.ted.com_p0oYh&utm_campaign=&utm_source=t.co
Deb Bailey Says:

I really enjoyed this essay. For me, reading Octavia Butler was a revelation. Shes the reason I ultimately decided
to write and publish SF. At a time when I wasnt exposed to other WOC in SF, she showed me that my voice
maered. Right now I write SF with romantic elements, which is not exactly lled with diverse voices or points
of view that challenge the traditional roles of women and men.
Also I wanted to add, if youre looking for examples where Star Trek did go outside the box regarding the
presentation of characters of color, I suggest checking out these two articles. One from Racialious about the Capt.
Ben Sisko character on DS9: hp://www.racialicious.com/2012/03/15/o-captain-my-captain-a-look-back-at-
deep-space-nines-ben-sisko/
And a description of the DS9 ep, Far Beyond the Stars where Avery Brooks plays an AA SF writer in the U.S. of
the 1950s. hp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Far_Beyond_the_Stars.
For me, seeing Lt. Uhura on the bridge back in the day told this lile black girl that she could also be part of that
world. Perhaps a minor thing, but it was a major inuence to me.
18 of 22 20/06/2017 6:47 PM
7/7: On pidgin and broken English | Sooo Many Stories Says:

June 30, 2014 at 10:29 am | Reply
[] 5. If you are a writer trying your hand at Science Fiction, this blog post might help: Alternate Visions: Some
Musings on Diversity in Science Fiction. []
notcatweasel Says:
July 1, 2014 at 2:16 am | Reply
Well, just a few words to say how much I enjoyed this essay. (FWLIW, Ive thought that speculative and fantastic
ction was a means for people to express a situation that could not be expressed any other way JRRT using
fantastic ction to express the horrors of WW1, Mervyn Peake using same to express his dislocation from China to
England during his childhood, JG Ballard using same to express the internment camp, etc.. It comes as no surprise
to read Rushdie etc., using same to express his dislocation.) I hope to one day read parts of Shah Nama in SF on
day from some new Iranian author, and Arab authors will have a fertile eld with the current turmoil in the Arab
nation. For my part, I intend to avoid the trap of always making any one group the automatic touchstone, how
dicult it may be.
glmorrison Says:
July 2, 2014 at 8:34 am | Reply
Reblogged this on Lesbian Writers and commented:
Vandana Singhs essay on travel, otherness and the need for diversity in speculative ction becomes essential
reading when you consider the links included. Linking to articles such as Nisi Shawls Transracial Writing for the
Sincere, Jim Hines Diversity, Appropriation and Writing the Other and Samuel Delanys Escaping
Ethnocentricity creates an educational journey for every writer. And every reader. If you stay on the train for the
next article, the next station stop, youll nd sign-posts to new brilliant destinations; travelogues lled with
writerly advice and possibilities and hope.
Friday Links | Writing and Rambling Says:

August 1, 2014 at 4:11 pm | Reply
[] Alternate Visions: Some Musings on Diversity in SF Looking at the issue from dierent angles. []
Shaering it to bits: Women and the Destruction of Science Fiction | Antariksh Yatra Says:
August 10, 2014 at 1:32 am | Reply
[] Diversify the eld, so that we are presented with a kaleidoscope of voices and visions (Ive wrien at length
about diversity in SF in another post). []
www.yelp.com Says:
October 9, 2015 at 8:46 pm | Reply
hp://www.yelp.com
Alternate Visions: Some Musings on Diversity in SF | Antariksh Yatra
Tippy Rex Says:

January 12, 2016 at 3:47 pm | Reply
Did you hear that segment on Best of the Left discussing the freeping of the Hugo awards?
Alternate Visions: Musings on Diversity in Science Fiction Randy Says:

[] Source: Alternate Visions: Musings on Diversity in Science Fiction []
Shawn Stickney Says:

Wonderful essay! Diversity is so essential both in a biological sense and in a cultural sense. If speculative ction
aims to take us to new in fascinating places then the genre must be opened up to new and unheard voices. The
voices of the poor, the uneducated, those with disabilities, other races and certainly all genders can continue to
open the minds of those of us who have been in the mainstream of literature and SF for so long.
We all share the same humanity and each person regardless of ethnicity, race, sexual orientation, physical ability,
19 of 22 20/06/2017 6:47 PM
and religion has a unique perspective and an individual story to tell. This has certainly been an interesting read
for me and I look forward to doing some further reading on this subject and of your future posts.
mukhamani Says:
Very interesting post, I love SF, but I have mainly read Asimovs books. Must try others:) Thanks.
Blogging 101: The Commons | mukhamani Says:

[] 2) hps://vandanasingh.wordpress.com/2014/05/27/alternate-visions-some-musings-on-diversity-in-sf/ []
whataboutemmanay Says:
Here is a TED talk regarding the importance of reading books from a diverse back ground that I feels supports
your point and inspired me to start reading widely! hp://www.ted.com/talks
/ann_morgan_my_year_reading_a_book_from_every_country_in_the_world?utm_medium=on.ted.com-android-
share&utm_content=ted-androidapp&awesm=on.ted.com_p0oYh&utm_campaign=&utm_source=t.chp:
//www.ted.com/talks
/ann_morgan_my_year_reading_a_book_from_every_country_in_the_world?utm_medium=on.ted.com-android-
share&utm_content=ted-androidapp&awesm=on.ted.com_p0oYh&utm_campaign=&utm_source=t.co
Kah Choon Says:

Diversity is the beauty of universe! Thanks sharing, I like your insightful perspective in your writings.
Rageoholic Says:
Great essay. As a two time immigrant, Ive found that writing, especially SF, has really been a tool for self
exploration. In fact, I think it is this aspect of writing ction that readers respond to most, because they explore
themselves along with you, and there is no beer way to explore than through the eyes of someone entirely unlike
you.
Alternate Visions: Musings on Diversity in Science Fiction | Coalition Against Election Fraud In Ethiopia
(CAEFE). Says:
Sandboxie Says:
Nyc Essay!!
rami ungar the writer Says:

I may have to write a couple of posts and perhaps even a short story or two based on your post. Diversity in my
own ctionwhether Im writing the usual horror stories or dabbling in sci-has always been important to me,
and your own post has given me a lot to think about. Thanks for writing about your experiences.
Nichole McIntosh Says:

Thanks for writing this post. Increasing diversity in all areas of life is invaluable and can only be a positive move!
emilyjamessite Says:
Reblogged this on emilyjamesjournal and commented:
If speculative ction is about dealing with otherness, with dierence, then these voices should be an integral and
essential part of the body of speculative ction, not pushed to the margins.
20 of 22 20/06/2017 6:47 PM
Karl Drobnic Says:

There are great challenges in creating characters with divergent cultural views, as I aempted in A Lesion of
Dissent (hps://www.goodreads.com/book/show/12043844-a-lesion-of-dissent). But many of the conicts that
have plagued post-colonial Africa and Asia in my lifetime stem from the vast gulf between the cultural mindsets
of developed-world peoples and peoples emerging from foreign rule. Grappling with these dierent perspectives
is a delicate task.
elle madden Says:

How interesting!
Alternate Visions: Musings on Diversity in Science Fiction | professionalj Says:

Alternate Visions: Musings on Diversity in Science Fiction oxyplus2 Says:

michaelschmidtliteraryharick Says:
This essay is wonderful. Good, good stu.
transcribingmemory Says:
I really enjoyed this piece. I am forever interested in cultures other than my own. Im a white American and I must
confess I scanned the article looking for Nalo Hopkinton then I realized its because she is the only no white male
sf writer I know. Ive always craved diversity in my life and your article reminded me that there is much more out
there and Im looking forward to checking it out.
Alternate Visions: Musings on Diversity in Science Fiction | tinacomblog Says:

foodforthought22blog Says:
I really enjoyed this. This was very interesting. I am always interested in dierent authors from dierent
backgrounds to see where their perspective is coming from.
Gavin Says:
March 9, 2016 at 8:23 pm | Reply
very interesting
itsmayurremember Says:
March 20, 2016 at 10:56 pm | Reply
This was a highly cognitive post. I kept thinking as I read it do I do that? Do I make the same stereotypical
assumptions in my writings?
I didnt know you were conducting workshops in India. I would have gladly aended them, even though I dont
write sci- now I may write them some day.
Thank you for the great post!
21 of 22 20/06/2017 6:47 PM
Blog at WordPress.com.
Entries (RSS) and Comments (RSS).
22 of 22 20/06/2017 6:47 PM

Alternate Visions - Some Musings On Diversity in SF - Vandana Singh Blog Antariksh Yatra

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Alternate Visions - Some Musings On Diversity in SF - Vandana Singh Blog Antariksh Yatra

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Alternate Visions: Some Musings on Diversity in SF | Antariksh Yatra https://vandanasingh.wordpress.com/2014/05/27/alternate-visions-so...

Journeys in Space, Time and the Imagination

Alternate Visions: Some Musings on Diversity in SF

She said: Wow! It must be really strange for you to be here.

Transracial Writing for the Sincere (hp://www.sfwa.org/2009/12/transracial-writing-for-the-sincere) by Nisi Shawl

I Didnt Dream of Dragons by Deepa D (hp://deepad.dreamwidth.org/29371.html)

On Other Cultures and Diversity in SFF (hp://alieedebodard.com/2013/09/13/a-few-disjointed-thoughts-on-other-

The many Movements (hp://www.strangehorizons.com/2013/20131118/loenenruiz-c.shtml) columns by Rochita

Race, Again, Still (hp://www.strangehorizons.com/2011/20110404/shawl-c.shtml)by Nisi Shawl

Escaping Ethnocentricity? (hp://www.strangehorizons.com/2014/20140324/2delany-a.shtml)by Samuel Delany in

Diversity, Appropriation and Writing the Other (hp://www.jimchines.com/2014/05/diversity-appropriation/) by Jim

Being Part of Everyones Furniture, or Appropriate Away (hp://www.starshipreckless.com/blog/?p=1811) and

And a couple of my own earlier musings, here (hps://vandanasingh.wordpress.com/2009/05/22/some-thoughts-

In So Long Been Dreaming (hp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/So_Long_Been_Dreaming), a groundbreaking anthology

for another day.

As the poet Faiz (hp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faiz_Ahmad_Faiz) said,

Ye Daag Daag Ujala, ye Shab Gazeeda Seher

Abhi Chiraghe Sare Rah Ko kuch khabar Hi Nahin.

This blemished radiance, this night-stung dawn,

Is not the dawn we waited for.

Now, there is no hint of the end of the road

No ceasing of the darkness of the night

The time when our hearts and minds will be liberated

Is not here yet

Keep going, for our destination is still ahead.

Parvat parvat, basti basti gaata jaye banjara

Over mountains, across selements, singing goes the wanderer

Carrying within him the lute of his heart.

May our wanderings be fruitful, and our songs heard.

86 Responses to Alternate Visions: Some Musings on Diversity in SF

Anil Menon Says:

Joseph Nebus Says:

Alternate Visions | INF2010 ThinkySpace Says:

Sorry about the rant.

Midweek Link Love: Seen. Read. Heard. No Inside Voice Says:

Writing Process Blog Tour The Middle Way Says:

Friday! | Gerry Canavan Says:

arvind mishra Says:

Help Moving To California Says:

Friday! | Gaia Gazee Says:

Sally Ember, Ed.D. Says:

May 31, 2014 at 6:25 pm | Reply

Enjoyed your blog post thanks for all the links.

James Nicoll Says:

He wrote something similarly bone-headed in 2010

Eleanor Arnason Says:

Sonia Lal Says:

June 3, 2014 at 12:48 pm | Reply

Links: 06/06/14 The Radish. Says:

Deb Bailey Says:

7/7: On pidgin and broken English | Sooo Many Stories Says:

Friday Links | Writing and Rambling Says:

Alternate Visions: Some Musings on Diversity in SF | Antariksh Yatra

Tippy Rex Says:

Alternate Visions: Musings on Diversity in Science Fiction Randy Says:

Shawn Stickney Says:

Blogging 101: The Commons | mukhamani Says:

Kah Choon Says:

rami ungar the writer Says:

Nichole McIntosh Says:

Karl Drobnic Says:

elle madden Says:

Alternate Visions: Musings on Diversity in Science Fiction | professionalj Says: