New German ScienceFiction

In recent years, a new German-writing Science Fiction scene has emerged, featuring very strong authors and works that, in our opinion, are at least equal in content and style to Anglo-American ones, such as Aiki Mira with Neongrau, Nils Westerboer with Atos 2643, Theresa Hannig with Pantopia, Jens Lubbadeh with Transfusion, or Lisa Krieg with Three Phases of Uprooting.

Unfortunatelly, the German market is very limited in its reach, and translations (especially into English) are the great exception, also because "there are enough American authors" and German publishers have no resources, and little interest in investing in this direction. The same applies to authors in other EU countries who, due to language, are constrained to their local markets, thus severely limiting intercultural exchange.

At the same time, Science Fiction (and variants thereof, such as Climate Fiction, Social Fiction, etc.) provides a space to think, write, and speak about possible, desirable, or probable futures through character and story building, thereby supporting a societal, European, and potentially global discourse. Examples include alternative social evaluations of (non-binary) gender roles, or constructive or dystopian approaches to environmental destruction and climate change. And finally, SciFi works and themes can reach young people in particular, by presenting them a future reality they can still influence and in or towards which they can act.

With our project - as cooperation by the Otherland Bookstore, demofutures and others - we want to tap into this potential by translating 5 strong German works into English, making them available, and promoting and communicating them through various relevant channels. To make this vision reality, we are searching for more ways of (combined) funding, contributes, translators, emission and publishing partners.

Please reach out to us if you want to contribute, know someone who could, or if you just require more information!