Vajra Chandrasekera

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Vajra Chandrasekera (17 August, 1979 in Colombo) [1] is a Sri Lankan author known for his work in fantasy.

Contents

Biography

Chandrasekera was born and raised in Colombo, Sri Lanka. His father was a writer. [2] He has described his first job at the age of eighteen as "writing fake product reviews of computer hardware, on a web 1.0 site run by this guy I knew who had a great scam getting free stuff sent to us by manufacturers and charging for ads on the website," later becoming a non-fiction editor in Sri Lanka. [2]

In 2012, he published the short story Jörmungandr in Ideomancer. [2]

In 2024, he published the novel The Saint of Bright Doors . In 2024, he published the novel Rakesfall.

Views and opinions

Science-fiction

Chandrasekera has stated that "as a scene, science fiction has to be able to fight those battles" concerning how the genre inspires technological development, saying that "you know the Torment Nexus meme? I love it, I enjoy it, but it also elides culpability in a way. It’s like, “oh, we were just warning you against it, we didn’t mean to make it sound cool.” You kind of did, a little bit, mean to make it sound cool." [3]

Recognition

Chandrasekera's novel The Saint of Bright Doors won the Nebula Award for Best Novel of 2023 [4] and the 2024 Crawford Award, [5] and was a finalist for the 2024 Hugo Award for Best Novel. [6] The novel also won 2024's Ignyte Award for Outstanding Novel -- Adult. [7] As well, his role as an editor for Strange Horizons during the six consecutive years that it was a finalist for the Hugo Award for Best Semiprozine meant that he was "one of a group of approximately eighty people who were collectively nominated (...), depending on how you choose to do the arithmetic and whether you count group nominations as legitimate in the first place, which not everyone does", with the result that in 2023 he humorously described himself as "7.5% of a Hugo nominee by volume". [2]

The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction has praised his "ability to weave disparate narratives into a kaleidoscopic whole with satisfying conclusions." [8]

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The Saint of Bright Doors is a 2023 fantasy novel by Sri Lankan author Vajra Chandrasekera. The novel follows the story of a man trained from a young age to assassinate a prominent spiritual leader, in a fictional city with supernatural "bright doors".

References

  1. ↑ Summary Bibliography: Vajra Chandrasekera at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database; retrieved June 28, 2024
  2. 1 2 3 4 Decades of Aspiration: A Conversation with Vajra Chandrasekera, by Arley Sorg; at Clarkesworld ; published June 2023 (issue 201); retrieved June 28, 2024
  3. ↑ Grifka Wander, Misha (19 June 2024). "At the Periphery of the Grand Narrative: Vajra Chandrasekera on Rakesfall". Ancillary Review of Books. Retrieved 28 November 2024.
  4. ↑ Vajra Chandrasekera, at Science Fiction Writers of America ; retrieved June 28, 2024
  5. ↑ "Chandrasekera Wins Crawford". Locus magazine. March 4, 2024.
  6. ↑ 2024 Hugo Awards, at TheHugoAwards.org; retrieved June 28, 2024
  7. ↑ "Ignyte Awards Bluesky". Bluesky. 8 November 2024.
  8. ↑ Chandrasekera, Vajra, by James Machell, in The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction (editors: John Clute and David Langford. Reading: Ansible Editions, updated 24 June 2024. Web. Accessed 28 June 2024.
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