English PEN is pleased to be partnering with StoryBundle and guest curator Lavie Tidhar on The World SF Bundle, offered throughout April.
StoryBundle is a way for independent publishers and authors to showcase their work. The site takes handful of e-books and groups them together to offer as a bundle. Offers are available for a limited time only.
This month, the bundle offered is a collection of science fiction from around the world, curated by Lavie Tidhar. Writing on the StoryBundle blog, Lavie introduces the collection:
While translation continues to pose a significant barrier, many new enthusiasts have contributed to surmounting the problem. In this bundle we have a comprehensive anthology of translated Spanish speculative fiction, Castles in Spain, as well as a wonderful novel from Japan, A Small Charred Face, made possible through the Haikasoru imprint dedicated to translated Japanese speculative fiction. In addition, we are offering all four of the current Apex Book of World SF anthologies, in which you may encounter many writers new to you, many of them translated from the original languages.
Yet another solution to the translation problem came with the emergence of new writers proficient in more than one language. Here, for instance, we have the wonderfully atmospheric Servant of the Underworld, the first novel by French author Aliette de Bodard, who writes in English. Russian author Ekaterina Sedia does the same, here with her debut novel The Secret History of Moscow, which is impossible not to devour. Malaysian Zen Cho’s debut collection, Spirits Abroad, justly won the Crawford Award, while fellow Malaysian Cassandra Khaw’s Rupert Wong: Cannibal Chef is a delightful, bloodied romp through a magical Kuala Lumpur.
I was lucky enough to write the original introduction to Mexican author Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s masterful Prime Meridian, a thought-provoking work of science fiction set in Mexico City, already garnering much attention. And I got to originally blurb South African author Nick Wood’s Azanian Bridges, an intriguing take on alternate history and Apartheid.
This project fits perfectly with English PEN’s mission to promote ‘literature across frontiers’ and we are grateful to Lavie for nominating PEN as the charity beneficiary.
The initial titles in the World SF Bundle are:
- The Secret History of Moscow by Ekaterina Sedia
- Servant of the Underworld by Aliette de Bodard
- The Apex Book of World SF: Vol. 4 edited by Mahvesh Murad
- A Small Charred Face by Kazuki Sakuraba
And for an additional donation, supporters get six more titles:
- The Apex Book of World SF: Vol. 1-3 edited by Lavie Tidhar
- Spirits Abroad by Zen Cho
- Prime Meridian by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
- Rupert Wong, Cannibal Chef by Cassandra Khaw
- Castles in Spain edited by Mariano Villarreal
- Azanian Bridges by Nick Wood