Associate Professor
samatasx@jmu.edu
Contact Info
Office: Keezell 205
Phone: (540) 568-6391
Fall 2024 Office Hours:
Tuesday 1:00-4:00pm or by appointment
Specialization:
Arabic Literature, African Literature, World Literature, Transnational Anglophone and
Postcolonial Literature, Afrofuturism, Speculative Fiction
Education:
Ph.D., African Languages and Literature, University of Wisconsin-Madison
B.A., English, Goshen College
Awards:
William L. Crawford Award for Best Fantasy Debut, 2014
Astounding Award for Best New Writer, 2014
British Fantasy Award, 2014
World Fantasy Award, 2014
Publications:
Books
The White Mosque (Catapult Press, 2022)
Monster Portraits (With Del Samatar. Rose Metal Press, 2018)
Tender: Stories (Small Beer Press, 2017)
The Winged Histories (Small Beer Press, 2016)
A Stranger in Olondria (Small Beer Press, 2013)
Articles and Book Chapters
“Verticality and Vertigo: Spatial Effects in Tayeb Salih's Season of Migration to the North.” Comparative Literature, vol. 71, no. 1, 2019, pp. 19-40.
“Towards a Planetary History of Afrofuturism.” Research in African Literatures, vol. 48, no. 4, 2017, pp. 175-191.
“Spectacle of the Other: Recreating A Thousand and One Nights in Film.” Fairy-Tale Films Beyond Disney: International Perspectives, edited by Jack Zipes, Pauline Greenhill, and Kendra Magnus-Johnston, Routledge, 2015, pp. 34-47.
Selected Short Fiction
“Fairy Tales for Robots.” Made to Order: Robots and Revolution, edited by Jonathan Strahan, Solaris, 2020.
“Wolf Tones.” Conjunctions, Issue 73, 2019.
“Hard Mary.” Lightspeed, Issue 100, 2018. Reprinted in Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy, 2019.
“Ogres of East Africa.” Long Hidden: Speculative Fiction from the Margins of History, edited by Rose Fox and Daniel José Older, Crossed Genres Press, 2014. Reprinted in Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy, 2015.