Unmaking the Post-Truth World With Global SF | Locus Magazine

On the origin, scope and purpose of Mithila Review—my guest post, “Unmaking the Post-Truth World With Global SF,” is now up at Locus Magazine. Excerpt:

Mithila is a glorious kingdom ruled by philosopher kings in the Sanskrit epic Ramayana. Millennia later, say in an alternate universe, it’s a decolonized terrain beset with intolerance and violence, a symbol of a civilization in decline.

Science fiction and fantasy that draws its power from actual science and history—a scientific spirit based on evidence, logic and rationality—could be a fluid and powerful language of protest in the new era of demagogues; science fiction could be a new language of awakening and enlightenment in the post-truth world. This was the core belief around which Ajapa and I built Mithila Review, a new kind of open journal with an inherently global bent in an increasing privatized and closed world.

Mithila Review grew out of our innermost fears, needs and concerns. We wanted to counter the growing climate of hate and injustice that surround us, and we knew we couldn’t do it alone, from an invisible, electrified patch of our planet. From the beginning, it was self-evident that we couldn’t hope to win against our enemy—the ideology of segregation and hate—without recognizing, addressing, or overcoming the many differences within and outside SF communities.

We chose to stubbornly believe that Mithila, as a referent, could speak to the times when we have felt that we don’t quite belong; when we liberated our anger and pain in ways that have fed the creative river within us. It’s been deeply gratifying to see that we were not wrong in our belief. Flash-forward a year, Mithila Review is a beautiful example of what we can accomplish together; it’s the result of a global mindset and collective effort. With contributors from Africa, Asia, Europe and the Americas, Mithila Review has evolved into a global platform for a spectacular gamut of humanity—not a single language, gender or race, its singular tribes or colorful nationalities.

You can read the complete post here at Locus Magazine. Many thanks to Alvaro Zinos-Amaro and Locus team!

To support us, please subscribe to Mithila Review through Patreon or Weightless Books.

 

By |2017-04-22T07:04:21+00:00April 22nd, 2017|Mithila Review, Press|0 Comments

Instructions for Astronauts

Become a space traveler, star trekker and adventurer for a few minutes!

“Instructions for Astronauts” appears in April 2017 issue of Mithila Review, an international science fiction and fantasy magazine. Written by Michael Janairo in nine parts, it’s about our destiny—humanity’s epic journey through time and space. What is this form? Is it art, poetry, film? You decide, please!

You can buy Mithila Review‘s April issue from Amazon or Weightless Books.

To support Mithila Review, please consider becoming a patron/subscriber via Patreon.

Donate via Paypal: https://www.paypal.me/mithilareview

Your likes and comments on Youtube, retweets and shares on Twitter and Facebook will help us find new readers and patrons for Mithila Review: http://mithilareview.com

Counting on your support as always.

Website: http://mithilareview.com
Twitter: http://twitter.com/mithilareview
Facebook: http://facebook.com/mithilareview

All footages are in public domain; to support my personal literary or cinematic projects, please subscribe to this channel and back me on Patreon: http://patreon.com/salik

Thank you!

By |2017-08-10T05:38:28+00:00April 17th, 2017|Mithila Review, Poetry, Video|0 Comments

Starting 2017, Mithila Review Becomes A Paying Quarterly

Issue 7_Cover

Our new multilingual edition with a special focus on the state of science fiction and fantasy in China, Czech Republic and Latin America is now out: Issue 7.

Starting this year, Mithila Review is finally turning into a paying quarterly publication thanks to the generous support of our patrons!

If you enjoy reading Mithila Review and value what we do, please subscribe or donate to Mithila Review on Patreon, or help us with a signal boost, review or interview.

You could also support us by purchasing this issue (epub/mobi) directly from Amazon, PayHip or InstaMojo (India).

Thank you!

By |2017-01-18T00:30:16+00:00January 18th, 2017|Mithila Review|0 Comments

The Asian SF Issue – Mithila Review

The “Asian SF” double issue of Mithila Review is now out.

Mithila Review - Ebook

Contributors:

Aliette de Bodard, Alyssa Wong, Isabel Yap, John Chu, JY Yang and Priya Sharma, Lavie Tidhar, Glen Hirshberg, Mia S-N, Mary Anne Mohanraj, Mark Russell, Dean Francis Alfar, Ng Yi-Sheng, Isha Karki, David S. Golding, Charles Tan, Jennifer Crow, Shobhana Kumar, Ken Poyner, Niyati Bhat and others.

This special issue of Mithila Review is also available for free download!

iBooks/Android: EPUB
Kindle: MOBI

We’re now on Patreon. Please help us meet our goals.

By |2016-08-15T08:35:26+00:00August 10th, 2016|Mithila Review|0 Comments

On the Challenges of Reading, Writing & Publishing Science Fiction & Fantasy in South Asia

Ashim-Shakya-Artwork-kathmandu-nepal-1

Cover Illustration: “Enclosed” by Ashim Shakya, from Issue 4 of Mithila Review.

In my new Strange Horizons column, I talk about Geoff Ryman’s story that inspired the Mithila Review / Asian Science Fiction & Fantasy project and my earliest forays into SF as a reader. My childhood revolved around comics and other things but none as vital and transfixing as some of the stories in “Perilous Journey,” a high school textbook edited by Northrop Frye and W. T. Jewkes in 1973. It was a miracle of a book for me. Then there were McLuhan and Gibson, the two towering influences in my life even before I knew it.

I plugged into a mind-space that couldn’t exist in the real world ever since I coded my first website as a pre-teen in the late 90s. The “cyberspace” offered me an escape from the hard truth of reality and violence that was going on all around me. I remain t/here even as I’m still confined, physically, to the fringes of the “empire” that is Anglo-American. That’s why, I think, Ryman’s work means so much to me. But I didn’t know yet which “genre” I belonged to when I thought and pitched my films during my early 20s. Now that I know there is a language in which I exist, I’m truly grateful.

By |2016-07-16T17:21:38+00:00June 14th, 2016|Cinema, Mithila Review, Writing Life|0 Comments
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