The best science fiction is often more about the present it's written in than the future it's claiming to predict. The blank screen of the future allows writers to explore burning concerns of the present day through allegory and the prism of SF, and to talk about those concerns in completely new ways. With this in mind, Comma has launched its Science Fiction from Beyond the West initiative, commissioning ten or more writers from various countries and territories around the world – places not particularly known for their SF output – to write stories set 100 years after a seismic, national event, impacting their sovereignty and affecting their people for decades to come.  With Palestine we chose the Nakba (1948), with Iraq we chose the invasion of 2003, with Kurdistan we selected the short-lived Republic of Mahabad (1946), and with Egypt we chose the Revolution of 2011 and its crack-down and reversal in 2013. This series asks the simple question: What will the future look like for these places? Will they have finally freed themselves of this event? Or will history keep repeating itself?

WINNER OF THE KITSCHIES GLENTACLE AWARD 2022