We had celebrated Ambedkar Jayanti on April 14 by revisiting the extraordinary book, The Blaft Book of Anti-Caste SF, that is undoubtedly a landmark. I had dealt with the women writers last time; in part II here, I’m sharing about the male writers and artists’ contributions. Published by Blaft Publications Pvt Ltd (R995, 2024), the book mines a rich lode of relatively unexplored literature. It is described as an anthology of “weird, fantastic, supernatural, Dalit futurist and magical realist fiction by writers from South Asia and the diaspora.” Edited by RT Samuel, Rakesh K and Rashmi RD; RT Samuel observes in his introduction, how, because of mainstream science fiction/speculative fiction’s overlooking of marginalised voices, this book aims to capture some of the “bubbling countercultural renaissance.”

As I mentioned last time, the book offers a superb selection of authors, mainly marginalized voices--minorities, caste-oppressed and indigenous writers; along with superb English translations from Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Marathi, Gujarati and Bengali. The writing is imaginative, philosophical, thoughtful and savage, some of it very funny, and thrillingly, it includes a number of visual stories as well. It includes a diverse range of voices, including Gautamiputra Kamble, V Chandrasekhar Rao, PA Uthaman, Neerav Patel, Goutam Mandal, Rahee Punyashloka, Nabi H Ali, Subash Thebe Limbu (an indigenous artist from Nepal/London), Bama (translated by Meena Kandasamy), Tamil Magan, New York-based Mimi Mondal, Gouri, Hameedha Khan, Gogu Shyamala, Esther David, Aswathy K Raj, Rashmi Ruth Devadasan, Gitanjali Joshua, and savage satire by Sumit Kumar of Bakarmax comics fame and many other comic book artists.