There are a few phrases in the English language that cause my brain
to bleed. “Science fiction” is one of them. I’m in New York’s Central Park,
lost in a sea of 7,000 orange flags — the installation of saffron-coloured
fabric panels otherwise referred to as The Gates — prepping for
an interview with Caribbean writer Nalo Hopkinson. Walking in the park
ranks high on my list of favourite pastimes. But, covered with snow and
altered by Christo and Jean Claude’s artistic vision, my beloved Central
Park looks like laundry day on Mars. And it’s here in this familiar environment
now turned surreal that the dreaded phrase leaps at me from a sheaf of
hastily Googled articles. “Nalo Hopkinson is a science fiction writer.”
You’ve got to be kidding me.
Nola Hopkinson
David Findlay
The dreadlocked, brown-skinned woman smiling up at me from the pages doesn’t mesh with my image of science fiction; an admittedly irrational and woefully stereotypical slideshow of pasty-faced teenage boys in thrift store Star Trek costumes, hunched over thick tomes with unpronounceable titles. Its growing commercial value aside, the sci-fi world has always seemed to me to be the purview of those who aren’t doing so well in the real one. But Nalo Hopkinson looks like a sisterfriend. The cool woman who runs the art gallery down the street. The poet stepping up to the microphone at a slam in Brooklyn. There is a wisdom in her eyes that tells you she has something to say, and a grace that makes you want to hear it. But science fiction? I’m stunned to find a Caribbean woman dwelling in a genre I perceive as foreign and inaccessible. But I’m thrilled to find yet another unexpected area where a Caribbean national is holding the flag high.
Speaking by phone from her home in Toronto, Hopkinson laughs at my preconceptions of her preferred genre. She sounds as well-adjusted as she looks, speaking in an easy calm voice that lilts in defiance of her 28 years in Toronto. Hopkinson is the best known of a small group of writers putting a Caribbean accent on the science fiction and fantasy genres. She has published three novels and edited anthologies of Caribbean and African diaspora writing in science fiction and fantasy, all to strong critical reception. Her work draws heavily on Caribbean life and culture: social trends; syncretic African religions like pocomania, vodun, and santeria; the works of other Caribbean writers, like Derek Walcott; lyrics from old calypsos; Caribbean heroes like Granny Nanny, or characters drawn from Carnival masquerades. It’s a mélange that’s winning over both science fiction fans in the US and Canada and, more slowly, Caribbean readers.
The small cabal of Caribbean writers in the genre includes Tobias Buckell from St Thomas and Haiti’s Claude-Michel Prevost. But don’t call them the vanguar. . .
Nola Hopkinson
David Findlay
The dreadlocked, brown-skinned woman smiling up at me from the pages doesn’t mesh with my image of science fiction; an admittedly irrational and woefully stereotypical slideshow of pasty-faced teenage boys in thrift store Star Trek costumes, hunched over thick tomes with unpronounceable titles. Its growing commercial value aside, the sci-fi world has always seemed to me to be the purview of those who aren’t doing so well in the real one. But Nalo Hopkinson looks like a sisterfriend. The cool woman who runs the art gallery down the street. The poet stepping up to the microphone at a slam in Brooklyn. There is a wisdom in her eyes that tells you she has something to say, and a grace that makes you want to hear it. But science fiction? I’m stunned to find a Caribbean woman dwelling in a genre I perceive as foreign and inaccessible. But I’m thrilled to find yet another unexpected area where a Caribbean national is holding the flag high.
Speaking by phone from her home in Toronto, Hopkinson laughs at my preconceptions of her preferred genre. She sounds as well-adjusted as she looks, speaking in an easy calm voice that lilts in defiance of her 28 years in Toronto. Hopkinson is the best known of a small group of writers putting a Caribbean accent on the science fiction and fantasy genres. She has published three novels and edited anthologies of Caribbean and African diaspora writing in science fiction and fantasy, all to strong critical reception. Her work draws heavily on Caribbean life and culture: social trends; syncretic African religions like pocomania, vodun, and santeria; the works of other Caribbean writers, like Derek Walcott; lyrics from old calypsos; Caribbean heroes like Granny Nanny, or characters drawn from Carnival masquerades. It’s a mélange that’s winning over both science fiction fans in the US and Canada and, more slowly, Caribbean readers.
The small cabal of Caribbean writers in the genre includes Tobias Buckell from St Thomas and Haiti’s Claude-Michel Prevost. But don’t call them the vanguar. . .
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