book review: a memory called empire by arkady martine

When I began devising A Mirror of Me, I wanted a character that erupted occasionally to the world around her with a rhymed poem. I did not want her to be that poetically skilled, but authentically awkward and passionate—though brilliant at most everything else, her poetry is meant to be an aberration to all her scientific-techno genius that comes off quite clumsy at times, but endearing. I dunno if I succeeded since I’m not finished with the story yet—we’ll see. I knew she was always going to be a black trans woman—this in honor of someone very dear to me from my past that is no longer with us that will always hold a special place in my heart. At the time, I was studying the ongoing effects of colonization and racialized terror and out of this evolved a philosophically speculative story and ideas—that was, of course, after the mushrooms, and another essay altogether.

Continue reading here.

A Memory Called Empire