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Arcx is all about literary inspiration. In episode three, host Anjali Alappat talks to Yudhanjaya Wijeratne, science fiction author, data scientist, and researcher. Yudhanjaya is the author of The Slow Sad Suicide of Rohan Wijeratne, Numbercaste, The Inhuman Peace, The Inhuman Race, and The Salvage Crew. 

More recently he was awarded the Gratiaen Prize for Literature for his yet-to-be published book The Wretched and the Damned. Yudhanjaya has been nominated for a Nebula award in 2022, and in 2021, he was featured in Forbes' 30 under 30 list. 

Yudhanjaya is also the co-founder of Watchdog, a fact-checking organisation created to counteract misinformation and propaganda in Sri Lanka. 

In this episode, we discuss A.I, his non-traditional road to publication, how real life can be as absurd as fiction, colonialism, space economics, the horrors of reality TV, poetry, and the importance of forging connections. 

You can follow Yudhanjaya on Twitter @yudhanjaya

Read Yudhanjaya's work:

The Slow Sad Suicide of Rohan Wijeratne

Numbercaste

The Inhuman Race

The Inhuman Peace

The Salvage Crew 

Omega Point

The State Machine

 

Authors, Books and media referenced in this episode:

The Discworld series by Terry Pratchett

The Dark Tower series by Stephen King

Dark Souls 

BioShock

System Shock

Final Fantasy 7

Ulysses by Alfred Tennyson

The Saint of Steel series by T. Kingfisher

Arcx is a series of the Subverse, the podcast of Dark 'n' Light, a digital space that chronicles the times we live in and reimagining futures with a focus on science, nature, social justice and culture. Follow us on social media @darknlightzine, or at darknlight.com for episode details and show notes.