The Slow Sad Suicide of Rohan Wijeratne

Overview

In this collection of super charged, original and mind bending short stories of science fiction, award winning writer Yudhanjaya Wijeratne takes us to new heights. Featuring dystopia, post apocalypse, time travel, robots and more, this brilliant collection brings together an eclectic range of stories that manage to reflect the current Sri Lankan social and political environment while delving deep into the emotional and physical connections that explore other worlds, cultures and timelines.

Many of these stories happen broadly in the same world, in the same future. The Writing Contest, Deep Ocean Blues, Beatnik, Work Ethics, The Only Good Doctors, Those Left Behind, The Tyranny of Water, Guardian Demons, Confessor – these happen broadly in the same world, at slightly different times. Often, they show different sides of the same trend; the technologies that the protagonist of the Writing Contest rails at are the same technologies that allow Romesh to keep his job in Work Ethics or for the better-off Malithi to be diagnosed in The Only Good Doctors.

See William Gibson’s observation that “the future is already here: it’s just not evenly distributed.” The same technological advances that benefit some characters easily disenfranchise others, leaving them unable to participate in the economy, or enabling radical state censorship.

Other stories stand distinct and apart. When I began writing, I wrote stories that did not necessarily need to connect – and the last story in this anthology leans towards that old freedom, even indulging in parody. Some trees grow anywhere.

Contents

• The Slow Sad Suicide of Rohan Wijeratne (Published 2017, on Amazon)
• Dreadnought (Published 2017, in The Expanding Universe 3)
• Omega Point (Published 2018, on Amazon)
• The Writing Contest (Published 2018, in Future Visions)
• Deep Ocean Blues (Published 2018, in 2054: An Anthology of the Future)
• Beatnik (Published 2019 in Chronicle Worlds: Crime and Punishment)
• The State Machine (Published 2020, in Slate, republished in the Big Book of Cyberpunk)
• Odysseus (Never published except briefly on my website. Written 2019-ish as a tribute to the Mars Rover Opportunity, and also to flesh out a little bit of backstory for the Salvage Crew)
• Confessor (Published 2022 in the Gollancz Book of South Asian Science Fiction, Volume 2)
• The Only Good Doctors (Published 2022 by the Lancet and the Financial Times Commission)
• The Art of the Possible (Published 2022 in Kalicalypse: Subcontinental Science Fiction - Fantascienza dal subcontinente)

Purchase Links:

• Perera Hussein
• Barefoot
• Jam Fruit Tree

Accolades and Recognition

The stories have been featured in publications including Slate, Wired, the Gollancz Book of South Asian Science Fiction, and a special commission by the Lancet and the Financial Times; The State Machine shows up in Jared Shurin’s Big Book of Cyberpunk, so I dare say they’ve demonstrated their worth.

Behind the Scenes

In 2017, I began writing short stories primarily as a method to teach himself the craft. Rather than merely the mechanical task of producing words, I focused on taking ideas, examining them from different angles, and learning to see the stories within. What started with Craig Martelle (the editor of The Expanding Universe) accepting “Dreadnought” in 2018 evolved into a body of work exceeding 80,000 words that found homes in various interesting publications.

In 2023 and 2024, Ameena Hussein began to curate my short stories into one volume. They exist here in paperback form, as a set, for the first time. I’m very happy to see them - especially because, living in Sri Lanka, I rarely get to see my short stories in print.