World SF is a loose term for international, or global, speculative fiction, predominantly from the non-Anglophone world. An early use of the term came with the establishment of ''World SF'', an association of SF professionals in 1976. According to the third edition of the Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, the term was partly revived by the author
Lavie Tidhar
Lavie Tidhar ( he, לביא תדהר; born 16 November 1976) is an Israeli-born writer, working across multiple genres. He has lived in the United Kingdom and South Africa for long periods of time, as well as Laos and Vanuatu. As of 2013, Tid ...
, leading to the establishment of the ''World SF Blog'', which ran 2009-2013. Early on, the Filipino blogger Charles A. Tan became involved with the blog, contributing much of the original material - including interviews with authors, reviews and the occasional editorial, including the important ''World SF: Our Possible Future'' in 2012. Tan was himself twice nominated for the World Fantasy Award, for his own blog, ''Bibliophile Stalker'', and has edited several anthologies of Filipino speculative fiction.
For his work on the promotion of global speculative fiction, Tidhar was nominated for a
World Fantasy Award
The World Fantasy Awards are a set of awards given each year for the best fantasy literature, fantasy fiction published during the previous calendar year. Organized and overseen by the World Fantasy Convention, the awards are given each year a ...
in 2011, and won a 2012
BSFA Award
The BSFA Awards are literary awards presented annually since 1970 by the British Science Fiction Association (BSFA) to honour works in the genre of science fiction. Nominees and winners are chosen based on a vote of BSFA members. More recently, m ...
for Non-Fiction in 2012. The Polish SF scholar Konrad Walewski argued that "Tidhar deliberately utilized the term World SF as a specific act of disagreement and dissatisfaction with what he considered to be the gradual ossification of the original organization".
In parallel, Tidhar edited three anthologies of World SF, ''The Apex Book of World SF'' series, between 2009-2014. Significant authors featured in the series included
Lauren Beukes (South Africa), Zoran Živković (Serbia),
Aliette de Bodard (France),
Hannu Rajaniemi
Hannu Rajaniemi (born 9 March 1978) is a Finnish American author of science fiction and fantasy, who writes in both English and Finnish. He lives in Oakland, California, and was a founding director of a commercial research organisation ThinkTan ...
(Finland),
Xia Jia
Wang Yao (; born 4 June 1984), known by the pen name Xia Jia (), is a Chinese science-fiction and fantasy writer. After receiving her Ph.D. in comparative literature and world literature at Department of Chinese, Peking University in 2014, she ...
(China),
Karin Tidbeck
Karin Margareta Tidbeck (born 6 April 1977) is a Swedish author of fantasy and weird fiction.
Tidbeck debuted with the short story collection ''Vem är Arvid Pekon?'' in 2010, followed by the novel ''Amatka'' in 2012. Their first work in English ...
(Sweden),
Guy Hasson
Guy Hasson ( he, גיא חסון) is an Israeli fantasy and science fiction author, moviemaker, and playwright. His prose fiction is almost exclusively written in English. He is a two-time winner of the Israeli Geffen Award for 'Best Story of the Y ...
(Israel),
Tunku Halim
Tunku Halim bin Tunku Abdullah (born 1964) is a Malaysian novelist, short story, non-fiction writer and lawyer.
Fiction writing
The author's fiction primarily falls within the dark fantasy and horror genre. His novel ''Vermillion Eye'' was a study ...
(Malaysia),
Samit Basu (India),
Ekaterina Sedia
Ekaterina Sedia (born July 9, 1970) is a Russian fantasy writer. She immigrated to the United States and attended college in New Jersey to obtain her Ph.D. Her most famous work is ''The Alchemy of Stone'', a steampunk novel that examines sexism a ...
(Russia) and many others. The series was continued in 2015 with a fourth volume edited by
Mahvesh Murad, with Tidhar remaining as series editor.
[{{cite web, url=http://www.tor.com/2015/07/15/cover-art-and-table-of-contents-for-the-apex-book-of-world-sf-4/, title=Cover Art and Table of Contents for The Apex Book of World SF 4!, work=Tor.com]
World SF should not be confused with
WorldCon
Worldcon, or more formally the World Science Fiction Convention, the annual convention of the World Science Fiction Society (WSFS), is a science fiction convention. It has been held each year since 1939 (except for the years 1942 to 1945, during ...
which, despite its name, is a predominantly (though not exclusively) American institution.
Further reading
Anthologies
* ''The Apex Book of World SF'', ed. Lavie Tidhar, Apex Book Company, 2009
* ''The Apex Book of World SF 2'', ed. Lavie Tidhar, Apex Book Company, 2012
* ''The Apex Book of World SF 3'', ed. Lavie Tidhar, Apex Book Company, 2014
* ''The Apex Book of World SF 4'', ed. Mahvesh Murad, Apex Book Company, 2015
* ''Three Messages and A Warning: Contemporary Mexican Short Stories of the Fantastic'', ed.Eduardo Jiménez Mayo and Chris N. Brown, Small Beer Press, 2012
* ''The Future is Japanese'', ed. Nick Mamatas, Haikasoru, 2012
Novels
* ''Turbulence'', Samit Basu, Titan Books, 2012
* ''The Secret History of Moscow'', Ekaterina Sedia, Prime Books, 2007
* ''Zoo City'', Lauren Beukes, Angry Robot, 2010
* ''All You Need is Kill'',
Hiroshi Sakurazaka, Haikasoru, 2009 (basis for the ''Edge of Tomorrow'')
* ''Sunburnt Faces'',
Shimon Adaf
Shimon Adaf ( he, שמעון אדף, born 1972) is an Israeli poet and author born in Sderot.
Biography
Shimon Adaf's first book of poetry, ''Icarus' Monologue'', won a prize from the Israeli Ministry of Education. In 1996–2000, Adaf studied ...
, PS Publishing 2013
Short story collections
* ''Jagganath'', Karin Tidbeck, Cheeky Frawg, 2012
References
Science fiction