The Skiffy and Fanty Show

It’s a new year, and we have a lot of new and exciting SF in translation coming out. Chinese fantasy, Czech space opera, Argentine surrealism…Daniel and I tell you all about it. We also take a look back at November and December and briefly summarize what you might have missed when our beloved podcast took a brief wintry haitus. Daniel also talks about the wide variety of short fiction in January and why you should get excited about reading these stories from the Polish, Japanese, Spanish, and more.

Extra exciting is the fact that you can also hear Rachel’s interview with the talented author and translator Andy Dudak. Translating Chinese SF, living abroad, how reading and writing and translating influence one another: it’s all covered.

Remember: with new stories and books coming to our attention each week, make sure to check the SFT website for updates. Enjoy, and keep reading!

A bientôt!

Show notes:

• SFT Out in January
  • “And the Wind Passes Dancing…” by Massimo Soumaré, translated from Italian by Toshiya Kamei (Unreal Magazine, January 1).
  • “The Talus of Madame Liken” by Asja Bakić, translated from the Croatian by Jennifer Zoble (World Literature Today, January)
  • “The Eternal Idol” by Amélie Olaiz, translated from the Japanese by Toshiya Kamei (Menacing Hedge, January).
  • “Soul Tree” by Katsuya Yatsukawa, translated from the Japanese by Toshiya Kamei (SFT, January 15).
  • “Sketches of a Worldwide Christo and Jeanne-Claude” by M.H. Vesseur, translated from the Dutch by Paul Vincent (Unfit Magazine, January 12).
  • “The Small White” by Marian Coman, translated from the Romanian by Sebastian Simon (Apex Magazine, January 15).
  • “All Saints’ Mountain” by Olga Tokarczuk, translated from the Polish by Jennifer Croft (Hazlitt, January 23).
  • “Astrolabe” by Raquel Castro, translated from the Spanish by Lawrence Schimel (Cascadia Subduction Zone, January)
  • A Bond Undone (Legends of the Condor Heroes Vol. 2) by Jin Yong, translated from the Chinese by Gigi Chang (MacLehose Press, January 24).
  • Frontiers of the Imperium (Central Imperium Book 1) by Jan Kotouc, translated from the Czech by Isabel Stainsby (Arbiter Press, January 3).
  • The Plotters by Un-su Kim, translated from the Korean by Sora Kim-Russell (Doubleday, January 29).
  • The Origin of the Fays, edited and translated by Brian Stableford (Black Coat Press, January 1).
  • The Enchanter’s Mirror and Other Stories by Marie-Antoinette Fagnan, translated from the French by Brian Stableford (Black Coat Press, January 1).
  • Mouthful of Birds by Samanta Schweblin, translated from the Spanish by Megan McDowell (Riverhead Books, January 8).

• Reviews
  • Ellen Jones reviews Tentacle in LARB
  • Lanie Tankard reviews Secret Passages in a Hillside Town in World Literature Today
  • Andrew Singer reviews CoDex 1962 for World Literature Today
  • Jenni Råback reviews Oneiron for Asymptote Journal
  • Jonathan Kirsch reviews Zion’s Fiction: A Treasury of Israeli Speculative Fiction
  • James Kidd reviews Legends of the Condor Heroes Book 2

• Articles/Essays
  • “The Beautiful Mind-Bending of Stanislaw Lem” by Paul Grimstad, The New Yorker
  • Ken Liu’s Introduction to Broken Stars
  • Heather Cleary interviews Samanta Schweblin on Lithub
  • “Home is Where the Haunt Is: The Fantastic in Translated Fiction” by Heather Cleary

• Readers’ Corner
  • Daniel recently read Leonora Carrington’s Complete Stories
  • Rachel is reading The Ouroboros Wave
  • Rachel is translating a story by Raul Ciannella

• General Links
  • Speculative Fiction in Translation website
  • Speculative Fiction in Translation facebook page
  • SFT on twitter: @Rcordas

Feel free to shoot us an email at skiffyandfanty [at] gmail [dot] com! You can also leave a comment on our website.

Our new intro and outro music comes “Rock Thing” by Creo (CC BY 4.0), which has been slightly modified to include sound effects and for length purposes.