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
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.