Vajra Chandrasekera's Blog

In the aftermath of Rakesfall winning the Le Guin Prize, I have a meaty new interview up at Reactor, a short one at Tasavvur, and a third, unfortunately paywalled, up at The Hindustan Times. Here’s a quote from the Reactor interview:

I tried to sabotage any sense of a just-so story about history, any definitive “this is how it went and this is how we got there”, because I find that not only boring but dangerous. Histories are multiple, shifting, and furiously active creatures, often far more...

The first thing they tell you when you find out you have papillary thyroid cancer is that it’s one of the best kinds of cancer to have because it’s so eminently treatable. It is a cancer replete with optimisms: everyone will tell you how lucky you are. They will open up your neck and take out the butterfly in your throat, and clinging to it by malign pincers, the crab will follow. We can only hope there isn’t a bucket of them in there. I have a surgery date scheduled soon: I hope to come out of ...

I am honoured, delighted, and deeply moved to be able to say that my second novel Rakesfall has won the 2025 Ursula K. Le Guin Prize for Fiction. See the official announcement at the Le Guin Foundation’s Youtube channel.

Many thanks to everyone at the Le Guin Foundation for making the award happen so smoothly every year; to all award jurors past and present, especially this year for their excellent taste; to my fellow shortlistees for the privilege of their wonderful company; to everyo...

Nandini and I saw Med Hondo’s Soleil Ô (1970) at its recent Anthology Film Archives screening, where it was part of a program on Malcolm X. The connection to Malcolm X is somewhat tenuous: he appears in the form of a poster, alongside other revolutionary icons such as Che and Patrice Lumumba, during the final sequence of Robert Liensol screaming and running through a forest to escape the horrors of bucolic white French c...

The funniest bit in the Malayalam film കഥാപുരുഷൻ (Kathapurushan, 1995) is when the boy Kunjunni comes home crying from school and his grandmother asks with concern if he’s being bullied for his stutter. No, the boy says: he’s crying because his teacher called him petit bourgeois.

As the film‘s title suggests—lit. st...

I’m incredibly happy to say that Rakesfall is shortlisted for the 2025 Le Guin Prize! A huge thank you to everyone who nominated it, and to the jury and the wonderful folks at the Foundation for all the work that you do. Many congrats to my fellow nominees this year: Andrea Hairston, Nalo Hopkinson, Margaret Killjoy, Jared Pechaček, Eden Robins, Nghi Vo, and Ursula Whitcher!

The Saint of Bright Doors was also a Le Guin Prize finalist last year, so I think that makes me the first-ever...

Rakesfall has won the Otherwise Award (formerly known as the Tiptree) which now awards multiple winners per year: Rakesfall is one of four, alongside Emet North’s In Universes, Walking Practice by Dolki Min, translated by Victoria Caudle, and “Kiss of Life” by P.C. Verrone. Many congratulations to my co-winners and the longlistees! The announcement page linked above includes some very kind words from the Otherwise juror Sophia Babai, who says:

Rakesfall is a bizarre, brilliant, relen...

I’m very pleased to say that I’m one of the 2025–2026 Fellows of the Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers at the New York Public Library!

The New York Public Library’s Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers has selected 15 gifted academics, nonfiction writers, and creative writers for its 27th class of Fellows in 2025–2026. The Cullman Center is a...

I will be one of the Guests of Honour at this year’s Flights of Foundry, alongside Sheree Renée Thomas and Anna Martino. Flights of Foundry is the Ignyte Award-winning virtual convention by Dream Foundry, now in its sixth year: you can register and read more about it at the same website above. This year’s FoF will be held September 26-28. It’s a wonderful resource for writers, free to attend, and scheduled to have something across timezones, so you should check it out no matter which end of the ...

I am honoured and delighted that my second novel, Rakesfall, is a Nebula Award finalist. Thank you to everyone who nominated it, and many congratulations to my fellow nominees!

The abduction of Mahmoud Khalil and the silencing of Helyeh Doutaghi are, among other things, a test not only of how far the freedom of speech can be legally and formally restricted—as a special privilege allowed solely to approved citizens authenticated by a stack of paperwork that must be at least this high—...