Dalit History Month 2024

Bio

Mimi Mondal (she/they) is a writer and editor of the fictitious. Her fiction has been nominated twice for the Nebula Award: in 2020 with her novelette His Footsteps, Through Darkness and Light, and in 2022 for ancient-Bengal-inspired setting titled Shankhabhumi and the adventure “In the Mists of Manivarsha” in the Dungeons & Dragons anthology Journeys Through the Radiant Citadel. In 2018 she received nominations for the Hugo, British Fantasy and Ditmar Awards, and was awarded the Locus Award for Non-fiction for co-editing the anthology Luminescent Threads: Connections to Octavia E. Butler with Alexandra Pierce. 

Among Mimi’s current creative projects is a longer series of D&D-compatible characters and locations inspired by Bengal and elsewhere in South Asia, which she publishes monthly on her Patreon.  A full list of her previous publications can be found here. 

Abstract

Do you sometimes revisit things you have written many years ago? A great story, but one that is disconnected from your present reality? One that was written before your present conscious identity was formed, one that was before you made major geographical moves? What do you do to such a story? Do you attempt to hide it from the face of this earth or do you rewrite it. In this talk, Mimi will be talking about the process of rewriting and the way changing identities makes one view their one writing differently. Mimi will reflect on how the rewriting processes specially works within a Dalit consciousness, and way marginalized identity is folded into speculative fiction writing. Mimi’s talk would also speak to her experience as an immigrant writer in New York, and how their view of their stories changes through their immigration process. 

In this talk, Mimi will delve into Bengali language culture and history, and how she incorporates that into her speculative fiction writing.