Nova Scotia Vol 2 anthology, edited by Neil Williamson and Andrew J. Wilson, is now available to order! It celebrates the depth and breadth of Scotland's dazzling science fiction and fantasy landscape from its haunted islands to its transformed cities and everything in between. Jenni Coutts created the gorgeous cover art.
You can order the book on its own, or buy the bundle anthology deal - both from the Luna store.
Today we'd like to introduce you to T.L. Huchu and the story "The Donkey".
About the author:
T.L. Huchu’s work has appeared in Lightspeed, Interzone, Analog Science Fiction & Fact, The Year’s Best Science Fiction and Fantasy 2021, Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, Mystery Weekly, The Year’s Best Crime and Mystery Stories 2016, and elsewhere. He is the winner of a Hurston/Wright Legacy Award (2023), Alex Award (2022), the Children’s Africana Book Award (2021), a Nommo Award for African SFF (2022, 2017), and has been shortlisted for the Caine Prize (2014) and the Grand prix de l'Imaginaire (2019). The Edinburgh Nights series is now on its third instalment. Find him @TendaiHuchu.
T.L. on the story:
I’ve often thought about the relationship between Zimbabweans in Scotland and those back home. Over time, with the loss of moments and experiences, plus the shifting of culture on both sides, you end up with something much less organic. People change over time yet they are held back and held together by certain obligations whose expiry date is long past. When you no longer have the natural emotions and connections that bind a society, what emerges is something a bit more desperate and ultimately intolerable. I come from a place where human capital has become our chief export and while Zimbabwe makes billions in revenue from this trade, the costs are unbearable. Yet the trade continues. I am a product of that myself, and so I had to try and explore these dynamics using the language and lore of Shona culture which has many symmetries with pre-enlightenment Scottish ways of viewing the world. How then to construct a common story in a new way? It still must have the beats recognisable to people who’ve shared that experience, yet express things in a slightly different manner from what’s been said before. And so I chose to centre the story on obligation, a spiritual kind which leads to guilt and resentment. This is the result of what happens when money replaces much more fundamental human wants and needs. When warmth and mutual recognition have sipped out of interactions mediated by technology, money becomes the centre of familial relations in ways that destroy a people. And the process of integration into a new society, which should be filled with hope and opportunity becomes stalled by negative emotional baggage. This can only lead to a certain kind of transformation, much like the bite of a werewolf does, but the creature resulting is pretty pathetic.
Comentários