Call for Submissions: India 2049 – Utopias and Dystopias
Mithila Review is seeking submissions for India 2049: Utopias and Dystopias, an anthology of short stories and comics devoted to the exploration of Indian futures, utopias and dystopias, set in India, South Asia or beyond.
What would India or South Asia look like in 2049, or later? What kind of democracies India or South Asian countries will become?
Who will rule the Indian subcontinent—evil dynasts and conglomerates, godheads or the common man?
What kind of a world would technological advances create? Will “Digital India” unite people, or make segregations mandatory, and create a new age of darkness with its data banks and mass surveillance?
Can India lay the foundation to become an egalitarian, star-faring civilization in the next three decades?
How will social media and IoT change people’s lives, reconstitute our friendships, our family structures and laws?
What kind of a planet will our children inherit? When the water in our rivers dry out, how will we source water? How will we survive mega earthquakes and massive floods? How will we live among newer species of beings that walk the earth?
Who will decide our fate: religion, the nation or ourselves? Will the old gods survive the new ones? Will women be able to roam the streets freely at night? Will it be okay to be queer? Who will live and who will die? Who decides?
What will we produce when we’ve had it all? Will there still be hunger and desperation? What will we strive for? Will life be a perpetual vacation or a never-ending workday?
These are only a few questions to draw your imagination to India or many Indias that might come to be, in the near or distant future. We are looking for excellent stories that show in vivid details, through exciting plot and sensitive characterizations, the Indias of the future. This anthology project seeks to represent the multiple imaginations of India and South Asia. We ask writers from around the world to engage in the present to imagine a future, to draw on the problems and possibilities of existing Indian or South Asian societies to think of a future with its own set of problems and possibilities.
Editors: Salik Shah & Ajapa Sharma
Word Limit: 4000-12,000 words
Deadline: April 30st, 2018
Eligibility: Stories should be set in India, South Asia, or told from Indian or South Asian perspective. We want excellent, characters-driven and thoughtful stories from emerging and established voices around the world. Your citizenship or nationality, or lack of it, isn’t a bar to submission. You are welcome to re/define India or South Asia to make it relevant to the future/s you’re creating. If you are new to Mithila Review, please go through our existing issues to get a taste and understanding of the kind of stories that define Mithila Review.
Click thought for submission guidelines and more details : Call for Submissions: India 2049 – Utopias and Dystopias
