English language
Published 2024 by Fernwood Publishing Co., Ltd..
Thyme Travellers collects fourteen of the Palestinian diaspora’s best voices in speculative fiction. Speculative fiction as a genre invites a reconfiguring of reality, and here each story is a portal into realms of history, folklore and futures.
A man stands on the shore waiting to commune with those who live in the ocean. Pilgrims stretch into the distance, passing a stone cairn with a mysterious light streaming from it. Two Australian women fervently dig a tunnel to Jerusalem. Men from Gaza swim in the sea until they drown, still unconcerned. A father and son struggle to connect over the AI scripts prompting their conversation.
Building on the work of trailblazing anthologies such as Reworlding Ramallah and Palestine +100, this volume is the first of its kind in Canada. Editor Sonia Sulaiman brings together stories by speculative fiction veterans and emerging writers from Australia to Egypt, Lebanon to Canada.
A very powerful and varied collection, in which not one story misses the mark. They range from direct explorations of the brutality of invasion and occupation, through some elegiac expressions of exile and loss, through to stories that aren't even particularly about current conditions, and work unusually well together for such a diverse set. I'll be looking for more work from the majority of these authors.
It's not just that the title of this anthology is genius, these are stories of ghosts, encounters, lost lands, resistance and connexion, and they are heartbreaking in a million ways.
