Interview with Fadzlishah Johanabas

Gold Coast Speckies interview Malaysian author Fadzlishah Johanabas: I am a Malay, raised in multicultural Malaysia, and a Muslim. Not necessarily a model Muslim, but still. When I was in secondary school and in university, I thought that writing English stories featuring local people and setting didn’t seem right, so I wrote about Caucasians in their...

Tuesday Fiction: “Flight of the Ibis” by Fadzlishah Johanabas

Today's Tuesday Fiction is by Fadzlishah Johanabas from Malaysia. Fadzlishah Johanabas is, at the moment, a neurosurgeon-in-training. When he's not opening up people's heads, or reading about the minute details of the human wiring system, he writes. His works have been published at COSMOS Australia, Poe Little Thing, World English Literature: new Malaysian stories, The Best...

Tuesday Fiction: “Prudence and the Dragon” by Zen Cho

Today's Tuesday Fiction is by Zen Cho from Malaysia.  Zen Cho is a Malaysian writer living in London. Her short stories have appeared in various publications including Strange Horizons, GigaNotoSaurus, Steam-Powered II and Heiresses of Russ. Her work has been nominated for the Selangor Young Talent Awards and the Pushcart Prize. She blogs at http://qian.dreamwidth.org/....

Interview with Zen Cho

Zen Cho is a Malaysian writer living in London. Her fiction has been featured or is forthcoming in Strange Horizons, GigaNotoSaurus, PodCastle, Fantastique Unfettered, Steam-Powered II and year's best lesbian speculative fiction anthology Heiresses of Russ. She is a Selangor Young Talent Awards finalist and was recently nominated for a Pushcart Prize. On tomorrow's World...

World SF 2011 Retrospective Part 1

In part 1 of our retrospective on World SF Literature published in 2011, we have K.S. Augustin who does a recap for Poland: Overview of recent Polish science-fiction Genre fiction continues to make inroads into what Western readers would consider to be “literature”. Recall Jacek Dukaj's winning of the European Literary Award for “Lód” (Ice)...

Heiresses of Russ

SF Signal have released the table of contents for upcoming anthology Heiresses of Russ, "a new annual anthology created in honor of Joanna Russ". We're delighted to notice the presence of Malaysian writer Zen Cho, and Hungarian writer Csilla Kleinheincz (a contributor to the upcoming Apex Book of World SF 2) in the anthology. The full ToC:...

Short Story Highlight: “The House of Aunts” by Zen Cho

We've not had the opportunity to run many of these short story highlights this year, which is a shame, as they allow us to showcase specific stories as and when they appear. We've featured Malaysian author Zen Cho once before (and hope to have an interview with her soon) - her latest work of fiction...

Monday Original Content: An Interview with K.S. Augustin (Malaysia)

This week on the World SF Blog, Joyce Chng interviews Malaysian writer K.S. "Kaz" Augustin. Can you tell me more about yourself? I'm not sure what to say. I was born in Malaysia, educated overseas, have worked on several continents and, right now, am temporarily back in Malaysia with my family. How do you balance...

The Magical Roots of Malaysian Horror Fiction In English

Eeleen Lee has a new article, The Magical Roots of Malaysian Horror Fiction In English, over at the Portal: In contrast to its colonial manifestations,  contemporary Malaysian horror in English is a vibrant and dynamic field made up of prolific Malaysian writers. The best known national name is Tunku Halim, who specializes in extreme horror and...

The Magical Roots of Malaysian Horror Fiction In English

The diverse history of Malaysia has given rise to a unique folklore that stems from multiple sources such as animism, tribal beliefs, shamanism and various religions such as Islam, Buddhism and Hinduism. Serious studies of the occult exist,  if heavily biased by colonial views at the time of writing, such as Malay Magic: An Introduction to...