Books by Sofia Samatar
Opacities: On Writing and the Writing Life
Opacities is a book about writing, publishing, and friendship. Rooted in an epistolary relationship between Sofia Samatar and a friend and fellow writer, this collection of meditations traces Samatar's attempt to rediscover the intimacy of writing
In a series of compressed, dynamic prose pieces, Samatar blends letters from her friend with notes on literature, turning to Édouard Glissant to study the necessary opacity of identity, to Theresa Hak Kyung Cha for a model of literary kinship, and to a variety of others, including Clarice Lispector, Maurice Blanchot, and Rainer Maria Rilke, for insights on the experience and practice of writing.
In so doing, Samatar addresses a number of questions about the writing life: Why does publishing feel like the opposite of writing? How can a black woman navigate interviews and writing conferences without being reduced to a symbol? Are writers located in their biographies or in their texts? And above all, how can the next book be written?
Blurring the line between author and character and between correspondence and literary criticism, Opacities delivers a personal, contemplative exploration of writing where it lives, among impassioned conversations and the work of beloved writers.
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$15.95
Made To Order: Robots and Revolution
by Sarah Pinsker, Alastair Reynolds, Tochi Onyebuchi, Peter Watts, Peter F. Hamilton, Annalee Newitz, Ian R. MacLeod, Daryl Gregory, Brooke Bolander, Saad Z Hossain, Ken Liu, John Chu, Sofia Samatar, Suzanne Palmer, Rich Larson, Vina Jie-Min Prasad
A cutting-edge anthology, published on the 100th anniversary of the word “Robot”, exploring the possibilities and place of robots in society going forwards.
100 years after Karel Capek coined the word, “robots” are an everyday idea, and the inspiration for countless stories in books, film, TV and games.
They are often among the least privileged, most unfairly used of us, and the more robots are like humans, the more interesting they become. This collection of stories is where robots stand in for us, where both we and they are disadvantaged, and where hope and optimism shines through.
Including stories by: Brooke Bolander · John Chu · Daryl Gregory · Peter F. Hamilton · Saad Z. Hossain · Rich Larson · Ken Liu · Ian R. Macleod · Annalee Newitz · Tochi Onyebuchi · Suzanne Palmer · Sarah Pinsker · Vina Jie-Min Prasad · Alastair Reynolds · Sofia Samatar · Peter Watts
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Tender
World Fantasy, British Fantasy, and Locus award finalist
Divided into “Tender Bodies” and “Tender Landscapes,” the stories collected here in this first collection of short fiction from a rising star travel from the commonplace to the edges of reality. Some of Samatar’s weird and compassionate fabulations spring from her life and literary studies; some spring from the world, some from the void. Tender explores the fragility of bodies, emotions, and landscapes, in settings that range from medieval Egypt to colonial Kenya to the stars, and the voices of those who question: children, students, servants, researchers, writers.
Tender includes two new stories, “An Account of the Land of Witches” and the Nommo Award shortlisted “Fallow.”
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A Stranger in Olondria: a novel (Olondria, 1)
Time Magazine: 100 Best Fantasy Books of All Time · World Fantasy, British Fantasy, & Crawford Award winner
Jevick, the pepper merchant's son, has been raised on stories of Olondria, a distant land where books are as common as they are rare in his home. When his father dies and Jevick takes his place on the yearly selling trip to Olondria, Jevick's life is as close to perfect as he can imagine. But just as he revels in Olondria's Rabelaisian Feast of Birds, he is pulled drastically off course and becomes haunted by the ghost of an illiterate young girl. In desperation, Jevick seeks the aid of Olondrian priests and quickly becomes a pawn in the struggle between the empire's two most powerful cults. Yet even as the country shimmers on the cusp of war, he must face his ghost and learn her story before he has any chance of becoming free by setting her free: an ordeal that challenges his understanding of art and life, home and exile, and the limits of that seductive necromancy, reading.
A Stranger in Olondria is a skillful and immersive debut fantasy novel that pulls the reader in deeper and deeper with twists and turns reminiscent of George R. R. Martin and Joe Hill.
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The Winged Histories: a novel
Four women a soldier, a scholar, a poet, and a socialite are caught up on opposing sides of a violent rebellion. As war erupts and their loyalties and agendas and ideologies come into conflict, the four fear their lives may pass unrecorded. Using the sword and the pen, the body and the voice, they struggle not just to survive, but to make history.
Here is the much-anticipated companion novel to Sofia Samatar’s World Fantasy Award-winning debut, A Stranger in Olondria. The Winged Histories is the saga of an empire and a family: their friendships, their enduring love, their arcane and deadly secrets. Samatar asks who makes history, who endures it, and how the turbulence of historical change sweeps over every aspect of a life and over everyone, no matter whether or not they choose to seek it out.
Sofia Samatar is the author of the Crawford, British Fantasy, and World Fantasy award-winning novel A Stranger in Olondria. She also received the John W. Campbell Award. She has written for the Guardian, Strange Horizons, Lightspeed, and many other publications. She is working on a collection of stories. Her website is sofiasamatar.com.
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Tender: Stories
World Fantasy, British Fantasy, and Locus award finalist
Divided into “Tender Bodies” and “Tender Landscapes,” the stories collected here in this first collection of short fiction from a rising star travel from the commonplace to the edges of reality. Some of Samatar’s weird and compassionate fabulations spring from her life and literary studies; some spring from the world, some from the void. Tender explores the fragility of bodies, emotions, and landscapes, in settings that range from medieval Egypt to colonial Kenya to the stars, and the voices of those who question: children, students, servants, researchers, writers.
Tender includes two new stories, “An Account of the Land of Witches” and the Nommo Award shortlisted “Fallow.”
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The Practice, the Horizon, and the Chain
Nebula Award Finalist for Best Novella
Named a Best Sci-Fi Book of 2024 by Esquire, The New York Times, SLATE, The Washington Post, and ELLE
“I am in love with Sofia Samatar's lyricism and the haunting beauty of her imagination. Her stories linger, like the memory of a sumptuous feast.”—N. K. Jemisin
A Most Anticipated in 2024 Pick for Goodreads | LitHub | Book Riot | She Reads | The Nerd Daily | New Scientist
Celebrated author Sofia Samatar presents a mystical, revolutionary space adventure for the exhausted dreamer in this brilliant science fiction novella tackling the carceral state and violence embedded in the ivory tower while embodying the legacy of Ursula K. Le Guin.
The boy was raised as one of the Chained, condemned to toil in the bowels of a mining ship out among the stars. His whole world changes—literally—when he is yanked “upstairs” and informed he has been given an opportunity to be educated at the ship’s university alongside the elite.
Overwhelmed and alone, the boy forms a bond with the woman he comes to know as “the professor,” a weary idealist and descendent of the Chained who has spent her career striving for validation from her more senior colleagues, only to fall short at every turn.
Together, the boy and the woman will embark on a transformative journey to grasp the design of the chains that fetter them both—and are the key to breaking free.
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