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Cole, Gina

Entry updated 31 July 2023. Tagged: Author.

(1960-    ) New Zealand lawyer and author, active in the latter capacity after 2010, creator of the term pasifikafuturism, which is to say sf (and Fantastika in general) expressive of understandings and experience of the nature and fate of the world as seen through the eyes of the original inhabitants of Pacifica from an anti-Imperialist perspective. Her thesis on this subject, Wayfinding Pasifikafuturim: An Indigenous Science Fiction Vision of the Ocean in Space: A Thesis Presented in Partial Fulfilment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy at Massey University, Manawatu, New Zealand (2020 ebook), relates this form of sf to Afrofuturism and Nnedi Okorafor's Africanfuturism; a version of her first novel (see below) is included.

After a series of tales published as Black Ice Matter (coll 2016), Cole is of sf interest for her first novel, the Young Adult Space Opera Na Viro (2022), whose protagonist, a cadet nearing graduation, declines the chance to join a mission into deep space, remaining in her native Pacific Archipelago, which now lies, through Climate Change, meters below the surface, but where a high-tech culture thrives. She is eventually called into space to help rescue her sister, who is trapped in a cosmic whirlpool, discovering en passant that a corporatized Homo sapiens expedition plans to commit genocide on a planet suitable for exploitation (see Colonization of Other Worlds). A kitchen-sink plot fails to vitiate the freshness of much of the author's attempts to rework traditional material.

Gina Cole was made a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit in 2023. [JC]

Gina Annette Cole

born New Zealand: 1960

works

  • Black Ice Matter (Wellington, New Zealand: Huia Publishers, 2016) [coll: pb/]
  • Na Viro (Wellington, New Zealand: Huia Publishers, 2022) [first version appeared 2020 in Wayfinding Pasifikafuturim (see under nonfiction below): pb/Elsie Andrewes]

nonfiction

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