The Speculative Route explores speculative traditions and science fictional modes across South and Southwest Asia and North Africa (SSWANA), examining their historical connections, inter- and intra-regional entanglements, overlaps, and differences. Conceptualizing science fiction and fantasy (SFF) as a mode rather than a genre, this volume challenges the putative boundaries between literary and genre fiction through critical studies and essays focusing on SFF from Bangladesh, Egypt, India, Iran, Pakistan, Palestine, Sri Lanka, and Turkey. It demonstrates the ways in which science fictional modes of thinking and imagination function as critical tools for addressing social, cultural, and political issues beyond genre conventions and expectations. Bringing together articles by leading scholars of SFF and think-pieces by acclaimed authors of contemporary SF, this volume focuses on central themes such as the relationship between aesthetics and politics, alterity, world-building, memory, trauma, colonialism and decolonization, ecology, gender, religion, and mythopoetics. It engages with the past, present, and future of speculative traditions in SSWANA, and compares the visions that emerge from these seemingly disparate––but historically connected––entities. Part of the Studies in Global Genre Fiction series, this volume will be of great interest to academics, students, and practitioners in the fields of genre studies (notably, SF, SFF), comparative literature, media and popular culture, area studies, postcolonial studies, and future studies, as well as to readers who are interested in exploring SFF works from the Global South.

Table of Contents:
List of contributors Series Editors’ Preface Introduction: “The Spice Must Flow” Merve Tabur and Sami Ahmad Khan I Critical essays I.I Future Pasts 1 Suparno Banerjee, “Science Fictionalizing the Epic: Retelling the Ramayana in the Age of Science” 2 Engin Kılıç, “Khent (The Fool): An Armenian Utopian Vision Compared to Ottoman-Turkish Utopias” 3 Ada Barbaro, “Other Places, Upside-down Places: Narrating the Nakba (1948) from the Future, Palestine Looks to the Future to Contest the Present” I.II Urban Futures 4 Nat Muller, “Maha Maamoun’s 2026: Cracks in the Future of the Global City” 5 Ezgi Hamzaçebi, “Istanbul’s Speculative Futures: Transformation of the City and the Sense of Citizenship” 6 Saba Pirzadeh, “Environmental Futurities and Solastalgia in Global Speculative Fiction” I.III Rethinking Gendered Presents 7 Tehmina Pirzada, “Beyond Capes and Khans: Social Retrofuturism in Select Female Superhero Narratives” 8 Zahra Jannessari Ladani, “Utopian Mentalities and the Dystopian Future in Zoha Kazemi’s Humanoid” 9 Sabiha Huq, “Bangla Science Fiction: A Gendered Landscape” II THINK PIECES 10 Sonia Sulaiman, “The Reality and the Dream: The Palestinian Speculative” 11 Funda Özlem Şeran, “The Tech-Ignorant’s Guide to Science Fiction” 12 Ahmed Naji, “On Egyptian SFF” 13 Zoha Kazemi, “Keeping it Close to Home: A Think-piece about the New Iranian Speculative Fiction Movement” 14 Manjula Padmanabhan, “Space, Time and Otherness” 15 Navin Weeraratne, “Writing Sri Lankan Science Fiction” 16 Samit Basu, “On Indian SFF” 17 Usman T. Malik, “An Ode to The Music in Our Bone Marrow: Revisiting Pakistani and South Asian Science Fiction” 18 Yudhanjaya Wijeratne, “Infinite Games in Someone Else’s Sandbox” 19 Priya Sarukkai Chabria, “The Same Life in My Blood” 20 Saad Z. Hossain, “South Asian World Building in Science Fiction and Fantasy” 21 A Roundtable of SSWANA Writers: The Speculative South Index