Vajra Chandrasekera is a Sri Lankan author known for his short stories and novels in fantasy, science fiction, and similar genres. His debut novel, The Saint of Bright Doors , won the 2023 Nebula Award for Best Novel, and his novels have won and been nominated for other awards.
Chandrasekera was born and raised in Colombo, Sri Lanka. His father was a writer. [1] 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. [1]
In 2012, he published the poem Jörmungandr in Ideomancer. He followed this with the 2013 short stories "Pockets Full of Stones" in Clarkesworld Magazine and "The Jackal's Wedding" for Apex Magazine . [1] In a 2024 interview Chandrasekera said that he enjoys writing and has settled into a linear writing style for his longer works. He recalled that after a decade of writing very short fiction, it was hard to adapt to writing novels, and he had attempted multiple before writing one he thought was publishable. [2]
In 2023, Chandrasekera published his first novel, The Saint of Bright Doors . [3] The protagonist, Fetter, is trained from childhood by his mother to defeat his father in their war. Fetter eventually moves to the city of Luriat and seeks his own path, seeking the mystery behind the city's fantastical doorways and connecting with a support group for the unchosen. [4] Amal El-Mohtar, in a review for The New York Times , described the novel as the best of the year. [5] Jake Casella Brookins, for Locus , described the book as "truly superb" with rich cityscape details and deep investigations of the writing of history and the desire for revolution. [6] Both reviewers were excited by the novel's stretching of the genre of fantasy novels. [5] [6] Publishers Weekly, in contrast, described the book as "lyrical but sluggish". [4]
In 2024, Chandrasekera published the novel Rakesfall. [3] It focuses on the repeating reincarnations of Annelid and Leveret, through a set of tales in a mixture of perspectives, genres, and plotlines. The book begins with the friends' youth during the fallout of the Sri Lankan civil war. [7] Madeline Schultz, for the Chicago Review of Books , appreciated the book's unique exploration of themes of colonialism and imperialism, but struggled with the wording of some descriptions and took time to adjust to the disorientation between episodes. [8] New York Times and Publishers Weekly reviews noted the book's challenge and payoff, with Publishers Weekly praising the book's lyricism. [3] [7] Ian Mond, for Locus, said the book's many sections could leave a reader "bewildered," but the ideas and exploration of Sri Lankan colonial history compelled readers forward. [9] Helena Ramsaroop, for Strange Horizons , writes that Rakesfall compellingly shows grief and hope in the pursuit of liberation. [10]
As of 2024 Chandrasekera considers himself to be in the New Wave, New Weird, and slipstream literary traditions, but also relates to the blended-genre term science fantasy. [2]
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." [11]
Chandrasekera's novel The Saint of Bright Doors won the Nebula Award for Best Novel of 2023, [12] the 2024 Crawford Award [13] and the 2024 Ignyte Award for Best Adult Novel. [14] It was a finalist for the 2024 Hugo Award for Best Novel. [15] 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". [1]
His novel Rakesfall was a winner of the 2024 Otherwise Award. [16] It was nominated for the 2024 Nebula Award for Best Novel and 2025 Locus Award for Best Science Fiction Novel. [17] [18]
The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction has praised his "ability to weave disparate narratives into a kaleidoscopic whole with satisfying conclusions." [19]