
Thyme Travellers
An Anthology of Palestinian Speculative Fiction
Thyme Travellers brings together fourteen of the Palestinian diaspora’s best voices in speculative fiction, the first collection of its kind in Canada.
About the book
Thyme Travellers collects fourteen of the Palestinian diaspora’s best voices in speculative fiction. Speculative fiction as a genre invites a reconfiguring of reality, and here each story is a portal into realms of history, folklore and futures.
A man stands on the shore waiting to commune with those who live in the ocean. Pilgrims stretch into the distance, passing a stone cairn with a mysterious light streaming from it. Two Australian women fervently dig a tunnel to Jerusalem. Men from Gaza swim in the sea until they drown, still unconcerned. A father and son struggle to connect over the AI scripts prompting their conversation.
Building on the work of trailblazing anthologies such as Reworlding Ramallah and Palestine +100, this volume is the first of its kind in Canada. Editor Sonia Sulaiman brings together stories by speculative fiction veterans and emerging writers from Australia to Egypt, Lebanon to Canada.
What people are saying
Daniel José Older, New York Times bestselling author of Ballad & Dagger and story architect of Star Wars: The High Republic“Within this beautiful, heartbreaking, inspiring book you’ll find some of the best speculative fiction I’ve read in years. Every story is alive, a living breathing thing, and they have collectively stayed with me since I read them and will for many years to come. Simply magnificent.”
Usman T. Malik, World Fantasy Award–winning author of Midnight Doorways: Fables from Pakistan“This is a collection of astonishingly brave, imaginative, and unapologetic stories that neither compromise on the integrity of their origin nor pander to a myopic audience. Reading this melancholy folklore of oppression and exile — of an inheritance of pain and countless loves dared and lost—stunned me and moved me to tears over and over. May these tales shatter the walls of every prison the world imposes upon them.”
Contents
- Preface — Sonia Sulaiman
- Down Under — Jumaana Abdu
- The Third or Fourth Casualty — Ziyad Saadi
- The Generation Chip — Nadia Afifi
- Soul Searching — Rana Othman
- The Heart Knows the Truth — Layla Azmi Goushey
- Cyrano de AI — Karl El-Koura
- The Frontrunner — JD Harlock
- A Table Set for Two — Emad Al-Din Aysha
- In the Future, We Can Go Back Home — Sara Solara
- The Forty — Sonia Sulaiman
- Remembrance in Cerulean — Elise Stephens
- Gaza Luna — Samah Serour Fadil
- Orlando’s Wolf — Rasha Abdulhadi
- The Centre of the Universe — Nadia Shammas
- Contributor Bios