Recs for Indigenous/Anti-Colonialist AUs, Indigenous History, POC SFF Traditions, and More!

[sanguinity]

It's time for our monthly recs post! Usually I make this a space for members to ask for recs that interest them, but this time oyceter and I want to do something different.

Dunno how many of you have been following the dustup over a certain pair of white SFF authors? (Briefest of summaries: one author wrote a "shiny" alternate-universe U.S. "frontier" story in which Indians never existed and the U.S. never had slavery; she also characterized that as a history that wouldn't be "wildly divergent". Another author made statements that, among other things, imply that POC are new to SFF.) Notice, please, that this isn't a post about the two authors: we don't write posts about white authors on this comm.

Given that we don't write posts about white authors, here's the reason I'm even bringing up that hot mess: while browsing nahrat's link round-ups, I've been noticing that now and again someone asks for recs of books that give the lie to the assumptions those two authors made. Unfortunately, the rec-making has been a bit thin, and sometimes is pretty heavily tilted toward white authors.

Happily, reccing POC authors is something this comm does really well. Let's make some recs! I'd like to see recs for the following:

• Alternate histories or universes that are indigenous-centric and/or anti-colonialist. There is no need for the AH/AU to focus on the Americas, and I'd love to see recs that don't.
  
• Books that oppose the notion of an Empty Continent -- again, books can focus on either of the Americas, Australia, Africa, or anywhere else that has had to deal with that lie.
  
• Books about how indigenous peoples have been an integral part of shaping the history of the world, and aren't just optional background scenery.
  
• Books which document and/or demonstrate that POC have a long history with SFF, or a history that's independent of the Verne/Heinlein/Asimov/Campbell anglophone tradition.

If you have other themes that seem appropriate to the discussion, do feel free to start a comment-thread for them.

Additionally, here are two existing POC-author rec-making posts in the discussion:

• ithiliana: Some of my favorite American Indian authors
  "Feel free to suggest other writers! Please!"
  
  
• Bangla at deadbrowalking
  "So several of the Desi folks commenting on the Global Represent thread have mentioned reading genre fiction in Bengali. Who are the authors you recommend? What's been translated to English or other languages?"

Remember, please: this is not a post for discussing white authors; this is a post for reccing POC authors. Let's make some recs!

ETA: I set up some category-specific comment threads below, but if you've got something that needs to be rec'd and the categories seem to be too constraining, DO feel free to ignore the categories. The recs are the important thing here, not the categories.

Comments

[carenejeans.livejournal.com]

"Magical realism" is always sort of shunted off to the side, even though it has a lot in common with "urban fantasy." And urban fantasy by Latino or black writers is often shunted to the side as "magical realism".

I'll make a list of some of my favorite Latin@/Chican@ books that have fantasy elements. Did you know, btw, that May is Latino Book Month? I didn't!

For a long view, I'd recommend Cosmos Latinos: An Anthology of Science Fiction from Latin America and Spain, edited by Andrea L. Bell and Yolanda Molina-Gavilán. (Wesleyan University Press, 2003).

[solesakuma]

Weirdly enough, in Argentinian academy, magic realism is considered the primary form of fantasy. Borges or Cortazar is what comes to mind when speaking of 'fantasy', not Tolkien.

[carenejeans.livejournal.com]

Not surprising! Imho, Borges' name should come up first EVERYWHERE when speaking of fantasy, but that's me. 8-)

[solesakuma]

Borges is a very dominating figure in Argentinian literature, in the bad sense. To this day, we still define writers (and even literary generations!) as Borgean or Anti-Borgean.