Singh, Vandana
Entry updated 15 September 2023. Tagged: Author.
(1962- ) Indian academic and author with a PhD in theoretical physics, currently Professor of physics and environment in the Department of Environment, Society and Sustainability at Framingham State University, Massachusetts. She began to publish work of genre interest with "The Room on the Roof" in Polyphony (anth 2002) edited by Jay Lake and Deborah Layne, which was followed up by such ambitious work as "Delhi" (in So Long Been Dreaming: Postcolonial Science Fiction & Fantasy, anth 2004, ed Nalo Hopkinson and Uppinder Mehan), where the titular, quasi-organic City is both celebrated and recast in sf terms through the eyes of a protagonist able to communicate with figures from the past and future. With the exception of the two short volumes in the Younguncle sequence for younger children, beginning with Younguncle Comes to Town (2004 chap), Singh has written no full-length works, though both Of Love and Other Monsters (2007 chap) and Distances (2008 chap) are ambitious, and "Infinities" (in The Woman Who Thought She Was a Planet and Other Stories coll 2008), is a significant exercise in what might be called the science fiction of recognition: the life of a mathematics teacher in a small Indian city is interwoven with his long-frustrated ambition to understand the scientific meaning of infinity; in the end, grunt reality is briefly transcended by a tour of the true infinity-embracing Multiverse, his guide being one of the farishte or cherubim who have haunted his existence with moiré hints of Conceptual Breakthrough. Then he returns to his human lot.
Much of the power of Singh's work lies in deft use of Genre SF tropes without surrendering her larger world to their simplicities. She is a significant writer of sf in short forms, conveying with engaging concision a genuine Sense of Wonder. [JC/LT]
Vandana Singh
born New Delhi, India: 1962
works
series
Younguncle
- Younguncle Comes to Town (New Delhi, India: Zubaan Books, 2004) [chap: Younguncle: illus/pb/B M Kamath]
- Younguncle in the Himalayas (New Delhi, India: Zubaan Books, 2005) [chap: Younguncle: illus/pb/B M Kamath]
individual titles
- Of Love and Other Monsters (Seattle, Washington: Aqueduct Press, 2007) [novella: chap: in the publisher's Conversation Pieces series: pb/Lynne Jensen Lampe and Pam Sanders]
- Distances (Seattle, Washington: Aqueduct Press, 2008) [novella: in the publisher's Conversation Pieces series: pb/Thomas E Duchamp and Lynne Jensen Lampe]
collections and stories
- The Woman Who Thought She Was a Planet and Other Stories (New Delhi, India: Zubaan Books / New Delhi, India: Penguin Books India, 2008) [coll: pb/Anita Roy]
- Ambiguity Machines and Other Stories (Easthampton, Massachusetts: Small Beer Press, 2018) [coll: pb/Paul Henry, Prosper Henry]
- Utopias of the Third Kind, plus ... (Oakland, California: PM Press, 2022) [coll: in the publisher's Outspoken Authors series: pb/]
works as editor
- Breaking the Bow: Speculative Fiction Inspired by the Ramayana (New Delhi, India: Zubaan Books, 2013) [anth: pb/Pinaki De]
links
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