Immigrant Sci-Fi Short Stories - Hardcover

by E. C. Osondu (Foreword by), Betsy Huang (Introduction by), Sarah Rafael García

Speculative fiction from the perspective of the immigrant, old and new, stories from the distant past and the far future, with a call to the experience of the present.

Tales from writers with Latinx, Caribbean, Asian, African, Arabic, North American, East European origins, and more, challenge the reader with stories that spill out into space, parallel realms or just hidden in plain sight. The stories explore the world from the perspective of the incoming, whether necessitated through war or oppression, financial or familial need, or with hope for a better future, examining visions of displacement and relocation in future and speculative settings. New stories selected from open submissions are set alongside classic sci-fi by the likes of Otto (Eando) Binder and Zenna Henderson, modern stories by such authors as Celu Amberstone and Ken Liu, and older, realist immigrant narratives by Abraham Cahan, Sui Sin Far, Lee Yan Phou, Constantine Panunzio and more. Complemented by a foreword by author E.C. Osondu and an insightful introduction by Betsy Huang, Ph.D., this is an intriguing view of the conflict and anxiety between the settled and the unsettled.

The new, contemporary and notable writers featured are: Ali Abbas, Celu Amberstone, Bebe Bayliss, Christine Bennett, Ben Blattberg, Judi Calhoun, V. Castro, P.A. Cornell, Yelena Crane, Indra Das, Deborah L. Davitt, Greg van Eekhout, Louis Evans, Illimani Ferreira, Beáta Fülöp, Elana Gomel, Eileen Gonzalez, Roy Gray, Alex Gurevich, Jennifer Hudak, Jordan Ifueko, Frances Lu-Pai Ippolito, Jas Kainth, Ken Liu, Samara Lo, Kwame M.A. McPherson, E.C. Osondu, Simon Pan, C.R. Serajeddini, Bogi Takács, Kanishk Tantia, Tehnuka, Francesco Verso (translated by Michael Colbert), M. Darusha Wehm, Kevin Martens Wong, and Eris Young.

The Flame Tree Gothic Fantasy, Classic Stories and Epic Tales collections bring together the entire range of myth, folklore and modern short fiction. Highlighting the roots of suspense, supernatural, science fiction and mystery stories, the books in Flame Tree Collections series are beautifully presented, perfect as a gift and offer a lifetime of reading pleasure.

Author Biography

E.C. Osondu (Foreword) is a Nigerian writer and Professor of English at Providence College, Rhode Island, USA. He is the author of two novels - This House is Not For Sale and When the Sky is Ready the Stars Will Appear - and two short-story collections - Voice of America and Alien Stories. He is a winner of the Caine Prize, the Pushcart Prize, the Allen & Nirrelle Galson Prize and the BOA Short Fiction Prize. His work has been translated into many languages, including Japanese, Italian, Icelandic, Belarusiana and French. George Saunders describes Osondu as 'A vital voice in the short story, telling us new truths with deep humanity.' His Alien Stories 'centers around an encounter with the unexpected, and explores what it means to be an alien. With a nod to the dual meaning of alien as both foreigner and exterrestrial. Osondu turns familiar science-fiction tropes and immigration narratives on their heads, blending one with the other to call forth a whirlwind of otherness.'

Betsy Huang (Introduction) is Associate Provost and Dean of the College, the Andrea B. and Peter D. Klein '64 Distinguished Professor, and Associate Professor of English at Clark University. Her work spans the overlapping spheres of US Multi-ethnic and Asian American Literature, Speculative Fiction, Genre Theory and Critical Ethnic Studies. She served as Director of the Center for Gender, Race, and Area Studies at Clark and was Clark's inaugural Chief Officer of Diversity and Inclusion from 2013 to 2016. She has published three books: a monograph, Contesting Genres in Contemporary Asian American Fiction (Palgrave, 2010), and three co-edited essay collections: Techno-Orientalism: Imagining Asia in Speculative Fiction, History, and Media (Rutgers, 2015); Diversity and Inclusion in Higher Education and Societal Contexts (Palgrave, 2018); and Asian American Literature in Transition, 1996-2020 (Cambridge, 2021). Her work has appeared in The Cambridge Companion to Asian American Literature, Journal of Asian American Studies and MELUS, among others.

Sarah Rafael García (Associate Editor) is an author, community educator and performance ethnographer. As a child of immigrants and first-generation graduate, she has over 15 years of experience as an Arts Leader in Orange County, California. She is the author of Las Niñas and SanTana's Fairy Tales, which is now a required Ethnic Studies text in the Santa Ana Unified School District in Southern California. She is also co-editor of Pariahs: Writing from Outside the Margins and Speculative Fiction for Dreamers. Her poetry, essays and fiction have been published in various publications. García is the founder of Barrio Writers, LibroMobile and Crear Studio - all art programmes initiated as a response to build cultural relevance and equity for BIPOC folks in her community. As of 2020, her community projects collectively established the LibroMobile Arts Cooperative (LMAC). Currently, she splits her time between writing, stacking books, and curating digital archives and BIPOC art exhibitions - she gives credit to her parents' GED education and the migrant labour that brought her grandparents to the US as the source of her perseverance and foundation to her accomplishments.