Scan barcode
A review by jem_of_the_brew
Unlimited Futures: speculative, visionary blak+black fiction by Rafeif Ismail, Ellen van Neerven
Unlimited Futures is an anthology of speculative, visionary Blak and Black fiction edited by Rafeif Ismail and Ellen Van Neerven. It includes short stories and poetry by established writers such as Alison Whittaker, Mykaela Saunders and Ambelin Kwaymullina, and also introduces a raft of new and emerging talent. These Own Voices stories by First Nations and Blak and Black writers run the gamut of spec fic, from futuristic technology to sentient creatures and land; the breadth and depth of imagination found in these works is wholly original and inspired.
The introduction to this collection is a series of transcribed conversations between the editors over a period of months, discussing the purpose of the anthology and what it will do. At one point Ellen Van Neerven says:
‘..[this work] makes no apologies; it gives no explanations. Sometimes our communities feel like they have to write for a certain audience, sometimes there’s a pressure as a First Nations writer to represent First Nations people. We wanted to free writers from those pressures.’
Unlimited Futures, page 13
In keeping with this intention, the stories in this work are engaging and profound, their meanings sometimes layered beyond what reading them in English can reach. For example, Yirga Gelaw Woldeyes’s poem ‘I have no country’ is presented in both Amharic – Indigenous Ethiopian script – and English, the texts set side by side. The poem is strange and beautiful, full of movement and place and the intersections of mind, body and spirit. At the end there is a postscript explaining the philosophies behind the poem and what it aims to do. Then it says:
‘The translation is as close to the original Amharic as possible, but with major phrasing changes given English and Amharic have such different syntax structures. Unfortunately, the English translation loses much of the Amharic rhyme and rhythm, but I have tried to make the English as elegant as possible while still communicating the Amharic message.’
Unlimited Futures, page 125
The poem in English is a beautiful piece of writing, but including the Amharic script and then the postscript after it presents the reader with a challenge; knowing that the poem was written and intended to be read in another language, a First Nations language, means that a reader reading it in English will always miss part of it. The script is there in the book, it can be read in its full, original form if the reader learned, or already knew, that language. But in this way, the deeper meaning and experience of this piece of writing is kept within the words of an non-colonial language, accessible only to outsiders if they took the steps to learning that language. English-readers can read and enjoy the poem, but it is not the full, deep, entire work, and thus the writer shifts the power-balance away from colonial, white-centric English to become First Nations-centric.
Later in the anthology Afeif Ismail’s piece ‘White Dunes’ is presented first in English and then in Arabic script, but this piece does not have a postscript; the reader is left to assume that the Arabic version contains more details and nuance than the English one, like Woldeyes’s piece.
There are many names that could be used for the kinds of writing presented in this anthology: magical realism; mythology; science fiction. The broadest of these terms – speculative fiction (spec fic) – is defined as ‘a genre of fiction that encompasses works in which the setting is other than the real world, involving supernatural, futuristic, or other imagined elements.’ This is what the work is marketed as, but it doesn’t quite do justice to the worlds and ideas that are glimpsed through these stories. The collection truly is unique, beyond established definitions for fiction writing – and the ‘visionary’ of the tagline indicates not only the bright and hopeful scope of the work, but also a projected time when such writing – and such ideas and futures – are the norm.
This anthology was published in a collaboration between Fremantle Press and Djed Press and continues a welcome and essential change in the tide of publishing in Australia towards centering and celebrating Own Voices stories. It is essential reading for everyone, not just lovers of speculative fiction and poetry, and debuts many new and emerging voices into the Australian literary scene.
This review was first published here: https://oddfeather.co/2022/03/31/review-unlimited-futures-anthology-edited-by-rafeif-ismail-ellen-van-neerven/
The introduction to this collection is a series of transcribed conversations between the editors over a period of months, discussing the purpose of the anthology and what it will do. At one point Ellen Van Neerven says:
‘..[this work] makes no apologies; it gives no explanations. Sometimes our communities feel like they have to write for a certain audience, sometimes there’s a pressure as a First Nations writer to represent First Nations people. We wanted to free writers from those pressures.’
Unlimited Futures, page 13
In keeping with this intention, the stories in this work are engaging and profound, their meanings sometimes layered beyond what reading them in English can reach. For example, Yirga Gelaw Woldeyes’s poem ‘I have no country’ is presented in both Amharic – Indigenous Ethiopian script – and English, the texts set side by side. The poem is strange and beautiful, full of movement and place and the intersections of mind, body and spirit. At the end there is a postscript explaining the philosophies behind the poem and what it aims to do. Then it says:
‘The translation is as close to the original Amharic as possible, but with major phrasing changes given English and Amharic have such different syntax structures. Unfortunately, the English translation loses much of the Amharic rhyme and rhythm, but I have tried to make the English as elegant as possible while still communicating the Amharic message.’
Unlimited Futures, page 125
The poem in English is a beautiful piece of writing, but including the Amharic script and then the postscript after it presents the reader with a challenge; knowing that the poem was written and intended to be read in another language, a First Nations language, means that a reader reading it in English will always miss part of it. The script is there in the book, it can be read in its full, original form if the reader learned, or already knew, that language. But in this way, the deeper meaning and experience of this piece of writing is kept within the words of an non-colonial language, accessible only to outsiders if they took the steps to learning that language. English-readers can read and enjoy the poem, but it is not the full, deep, entire work, and thus the writer shifts the power-balance away from colonial, white-centric English to become First Nations-centric.
Later in the anthology Afeif Ismail’s piece ‘White Dunes’ is presented first in English and then in Arabic script, but this piece does not have a postscript; the reader is left to assume that the Arabic version contains more details and nuance than the English one, like Woldeyes’s piece.
There are many names that could be used for the kinds of writing presented in this anthology: magical realism; mythology; science fiction. The broadest of these terms – speculative fiction (spec fic) – is defined as ‘a genre of fiction that encompasses works in which the setting is other than the real world, involving supernatural, futuristic, or other imagined elements.’ This is what the work is marketed as, but it doesn’t quite do justice to the worlds and ideas that are glimpsed through these stories. The collection truly is unique, beyond established definitions for fiction writing – and the ‘visionary’ of the tagline indicates not only the bright and hopeful scope of the work, but also a projected time when such writing – and such ideas and futures – are the norm.
This anthology was published in a collaboration between Fremantle Press and Djed Press and continues a welcome and essential change in the tide of publishing in Australia towards centering and celebrating Own Voices stories. It is essential reading for everyone, not just lovers of speculative fiction and poetry, and debuts many new and emerging voices into the Australian literary scene.
This review was first published here: https://oddfeather.co/2022/03/31/review-unlimited-futures-anthology-edited-by-rafeif-ismail-ellen-van-neerven/