Dispelling Fantasies: Authors of Color Reimagine a Genre

by Joy Sanchez-Taylor

Overview

In Dispelling Fantasies, Joy Sanchez-Taylor examines how authors of color, such as R. F. Kuang, N. K. Jemisin, Nnedi Okorafor, Tomi Adeyemi, Tasha Suri, Aiden Thomas, Nghi Vo, and Marlon James, among others, offer critical counterpoints to the history of white-dominated, Eurocentric fantasy. The traditional fantasy that these authors are writing against reinforces Christian virtues and colonial, white supremacist structures; Sanchez-Taylor argues that its racial tropes are tied to a history of colonization and Christian missionary practices, with popular fantasy narratives often depicting Indigenous groups as primitive, deviant peoples in need of salvation. Such representations are based on a Western binary of rational versus magical and are influenced by tenets of Christianity, ultimately contributing to depictions of “the dark fantastic” or fantasy worlds where dark and othered characters are implicitly portrayed as evil and irredeemable. Organized around four Christian ideals that appear frequently in Western fantasy texts—virtue, envy, patriarchy, and salvation—Dispelling Fantasies demonstrates how non-Eurocentric fantasy worlds offer alternative versions of morality, race, gender, and sexuality and make space for authors to move away from hierarchical, binary systems of good and evil.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780814284193
Publisher:	Ohio State University Press
Publication date:	07/11/2025
Series:	New Suns: Race, Gender, and Sexuality in the Speculative
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	188
File size:	10 MB

About the Author

Joy Sanchez-Taylor is Professor of English at LaGuardia Community College (CUNY), where her research addresses intersections between science fiction, fantasy, and critical race studies. She is the author of Diverse Futures: Science Fiction by Authors of Color (2021).

Read an Excerpt

Dispelling Fantasies is not a history of the fantasy genre or a historical overview of authors of color in the genre; this project is more concerned with how contemporary authors of color are working within the genre to dismantle the perception that all fantasy is white, European, Christian, and medieval. I decided to title this book Dispelling Fantasies using the plural “fantasies” to indicate that this text will go beyond a Western, Eurocentric depiction of fantasy literature; I am examining fantasy and fantastic literature written by authors of color, but this work is equally invested in exposing the fantasy that rationality, imagination, and magic belong only to white men, and the fantasy of a “pure” and morally “good” white medieval setting that allows readers to escape responsibility for the effects of colonization and xenophobia while subsequently creating worlds that depict dark-skinned peoples as an evil to be purged. As R. F. Kuang notes in her novel Babel (2022), “It’s violent work that sustains the fantasy.” Fan backlash against the diversifying of fantasy TV series such as the new Lord of the Rings series Rings of Power and the new Game of Thrones series House of the Dragon is just the surface of the myriad ways that some authors and fans work to protect white dominance in the fantasy genre. Fantasy by authors of color is a critical area of study because of its potential to broaden and complicate the types of stories that scholars and fans recognize as fantasy; these works create worlds that restore narrative agency and complexity to those historically deemed “other” while working to reclaim knowledge that has been suppressed by imperialism, colonialism, and white supremacy.

If authors like Tolkien have been placed at the center of the established fantasy literature fuzzy set, then I intend to do a bit of genre origami in this project and fold the edges into the center. I do not intend to discuss race and fantasy from the Eurocentric “center” because such work has already been done admirably by scholars such as Elizabeth Leonard, Helen Young, and Ebony Elizabeth Thomas. Therefore, the only concern this work will have with the center of the fuzzy set of fantasy is to discuss it in terms of Helen Young’s argument that the fantasy genre has formed “habits of Whiteness” that have affected and continue to affect contemporary authors writing non-Eurocentric fantasy. Western, Eurocentric fantasy is still the majority of the fantasy media available on the market, and it is the fantasy that publishers and fans expect to encounter. These influences may result in barriers for authors trying to write fantasy works with non-Eurocentric viewpoints; many of the authors discussed in this project have been told by fellow authors or publishers that their writing isn’t strong because fantasy fans won’t accept the setting or because the story doesn’t follow an established Western narrative arc. And there are also authors who don’t necessarily identify as “fantasy” authors because of the genre’s Eurocentric focus. This project errs on the side of inclusivity while still recognizing the fact that fantastic writings, oral histories, and belief systems from non-Eurocentric cultures have historically been labeled “magical” or “fantastical” by colonizing cultures to portray these cultures as less civilized or inhuman. Dispelling Fantasies includes works from authors of color who are blending Western fantasy tropes with non-Eurocentric elements as well as some works that could be categorized as fantastic literature or magical realism. The works that I discuss as “fantasy” are writings that take some inspiration from established Western fantasy structures and tropes while also adding non-Eurocentric characters, settings, and worldbuilding elements that move the text away from canonical expectations and toward a more diverse representation of the fantasy genre. This choice is not intended to privilege Western fantasy; it is my attempt to avoid conflating oral histories, realist, or magical realist texts written by authors of color with the category of “fantasy.” I have also elected to include a few works that use references to non-Eurocentric magic, magical artifacts, or fantastic events; these works will be described as “fantastic” writing, Afrojujuism, or works of pantheology to distinguish them from Western fantasy out of respect for the authors’ intentions.

My decisions on which texts to include in this project focused on the structure and elements of the stories being considered and on the author’s intent: Does the author engage in worldbuilding to create new or alternate worlds? Are there fantasy elements such as portals, magical artifacts, or world-orienting maps? Do the authors themselves label the fantastic abilities of their characters with the term “magic”? These are all questions I have asked myself to help decide which texts should be included in this project, which aims to identify and engage with non-Eurocentric fantasy and fantastic literatures. The benefits of the fantasy genre’s worldbuilding capabilities for authors of color should not be overlooked because of the perception that fantasy is a “white genre.” Authors of color who write fantasy or fantastic literature often do so because of the inherent possibility within these forms of writing to build new or alternate worlds that have decolonial viewpoints. And visions of decolonial worlds hold the potential to help readers of color overcome the “imagination gap” identified by Thomas and, instead, immerse themselves in worlds full of cultural recovery and renewal. Overall, the texts discussed in Dispelling Fantasies prove that it is not only possible, it is critical, to write diverse fantasy worlds.

Table of Contents

Contents Acknowledgments Introduction Dispelling Fantasies Chapter 1 Virtue: Revising the Moral Order of Epic Fantasy Chapter 2 Envy: Blood Magic Is Not Always Black Magic Chapter 3 Patriarchy: Reimagining Gender Roles in Fantasy Chapter 4 Salvation: Rescuing the Dark Other from the White Savior Conclusion Decolonizing the Imagination Works Cited Index

Editorial Reviews

“Dispelling Fantasies significantly advances scholarship on works that break from the Western, Eurocentric fantasy tradition, highlighting how Christian virtues and their historical ties to colonialism and white supremacy have shaped fantasy’s bias toward whiteness.” —Taylor Driggers, author of Queering Faith in Fantasy Literature: Fantastic Incarnations and the Deconstruction of Theology

“Sanchez-Taylor introduces a large number of BIPOC authors into the critical arena, engaging with subtleties and variations across different ethnic, religious, and colonialized experiences and revealing how these writers challenge and subvert the fantasy canon. Dispelling Fantasies is creative and insightful.” —Farah Mendlesohn, author of Rhetorics of Fantasy

From the Publisher