LibraryThing is pleased to sit down this month with award-winning African Australian author Eugen Bacon, whose Afro-Centered Futurisms in Our Speculative Fiction just won an Ignyte Award, and who won the 2025 Nebula Kate Wilhelm Solstice Award—given by the SFWA to an author who has made “significant contributions to the science fiction, fantasy, and related genres community”—earlier this year. Born in Tanzania, Eugen earned a Master of Science with distinction in distributed computer systems from the University of Greenwich, UK, and a Master of Arts and a doctorate in writing from Swinburne University of Technology, Australia. Before becoming a professional writer full-time, she worked in the information and communication technology field and continued to do so, juggling a day job with motherhood, professional editing and numerous writing projects.

Eugen has published numerous short stories and novels in various speculative fiction genres, and is particularly known for her Afrofuturism and exploration of gender. She was twice a finalist for the World Fantasy Award, Shirley Jackson Award, Aurealis Award, and in 2023 she won a British Fantasy Award in the Non-Fiction category for her An Earnest Blackness. The latter was also a finalist for a 2023 Locus Award, which she won this year in the Non-Fiction category for her Afro-Centered Futurisms in Our Speculative Fiction. She has won or been nominated for numerous other awards, and also has served as a judge for various Australian book prizes, as well as for global awards, including chairing various jury categories of the Bram Stoker Awards. She is currently the chair of the jury for the Otherwise Awards that encourage the exploration and expansion of gender. This past September a new novelette, Novic, a standalone prequel to Claiming T-Mo, the debut title in her Outbreeds series, was published by Meerkat Press. Also in September, The Nga’phandileh Whisperer, a novella in The Sauútiverse, was published by Star and Saberse Publishing. Eugen sat down with Abigail this month to discuss these stories, and her work in general.

Your fictional work is often described as Afrofuturist. You have explored this genre in your scholarly work as well, in titles like Afro-Centered Futurisms in Our Speculative Fiction. What is Afrofuturism, what does it entail, and what is its significance, both to you personally, and in a wider, global sense?

Actually, Abigail, my work is more than Afrofuturist. I like to think of it as Afrosurreal, or Afro-irreal—fantastical literature that demands the reader to trust and find immersion in the story’s impossibility. The irreal story stays unpredictable and believable in all its unbelievability. The reader finds immersion in the illusion, entranced in the satire or symbolism, cementing even while challenging realism. I use this type of fiction as an allegory for somber themes of belonging, social in/justice, climate action, “Othering”… in the real world. I hero Black people stories, giving voice in sometimes dystopian futurisms, to the woman in the village, the little orphan girl, little lost boy in the village—people who have seen much, suffered much, and need to find the hero/ine within.

In terms of Afrofuturism itself, there’s much discord about this term. It is for me, simply, Afrocentric representation in a kind of fiction that engages with difference. Afrofuturism is to reimagine Africa in all its diversity, to expand and extrapolate it through literature, music, the visual arts, religion, even philosophy. It is that which haunts imagination and transmutes itself into a craving for revolution.

What is the Sauútiverse, and The Sauúti Collective? How did it first get going, who’s involved, and what are its purpose and goals?

I am part of an Afrocentric collection of writers from across Africa—Ghana, Tanzania, Nigeria, South Africa, and the diaspora (Haitian American)… We came together in 2021 with a vision of Afrocentric-based collaboration, support and creativity. Together, we have invented a world deeply rooted in African culture, language and mythology. We’re like-minded creatives who came together for a shared cause in giving voice and space for Afrocentric literature. The Sauútiverse comprises five planets, two suns, two moons and is enmeshed with sound magic. The name of each planet, Ekwukwe, Órino-Rin, Zezépfeni, Wiimb-ó and Mahwé is derived from an African word meaning song. There is also an inhabited moon, Pinaa. You can find out more about the Sauútiverse in our FAQs.

There’s much potential in this Afrocentric universe, and we have a new anthology coming out, Sauúti Terrors, published by Flame Tree Publishing and distributed by Simon and Schuster. I co-edited this anthology with Cheryl S. Ntumy and Stephen Embleton, out in January 2026.

Tell us a little bit about The Nga’phandileh Whisperer specifically. Where does this story fit into the wider universe in which you have set it? Do readers need to be familiar with that universe beforehand, to fully appreciate the story?

Readers can approach The Nga’phandileh Whisperer blind without being familiar with the Sauútiverse. Each Sauútiverse story out there is standalone, self-sufficient and boasting a richness in unique and robust worldbuilding. I’ve written several short stories in this world, the first one “Sina, the Child with no Echo”, published in our first anthology, Mothersound: A Sauútiverse Anthology. “Sina” is set in Ekwukwe, the hollow planet, where having a magical echo is important. Sina’s neurodivergence is perceived a curse but turns out to be a gift. Another playful tale is “The Mystery of the Vanishing Echoes”, published in Sherlock is a Girl’s Name. In this multiverse story, sleuth Shaalok Ho-ohmsi and her ward Wa’watison are summoned to the planet Ekwukwe to solve a mystery of vanishing echoes.

I wanted to write a longer Sauútiverse story with a strong female protagonist, and found this in Chant’L—a young Guardian with an affinity to hive-minded beasts, unaware that she has more magic than she knows how to use. Hence The Nga’phandileh Whisperer.

The novella is a second-person ‘you’ narrative, addressing the protagonist. I am at home with this voice, a personal connection with the protagonist, seeing as they see, feeling as they feel, yet omniscient—knowing just a little more outside them.

Novic is the origin story for one of the characters in Claiming T-Mo. What is the Outbreeds series all about, and why was it important for you to go back and write a prequel to explain this specific character’s beginnings?

The Outbreeds series by Meerkat Press is about a breed of others. It engages with difference, tackling the unbelonging individual’s experience—even today in our polarized world, and especially in the current US environment, for being different. Novic is the father who broke tradition in my first novel Claiming T-Mo, with devastating consequences. I thought about why did he do that? What makes this immortal priest who and what he is? What makes him tick? Hence Novic, the story before the story. It’s a moment in time in Grovea, the made-up planet. I wanted to reconnect with Claiming T-Mo, to revive the versatility of a character’s light and shade. I scrutinized Novic’s story arc—a wandering anti-hero seeking to comprehend his incarnations, and had fun with this novelette that demystifies death.

You’re a very prolific author. Can you describe your writing process? Do you devote a certain amount of time daily to writing, do you write in a specific place, or have certain rituals? How do you plan your stories—do they unfold as you go along, or do you outline them?

I’m a very experimental writer! I write to explore. My writing is a curiosity, a response to a trigger or an incipient question troubling my mind. I write to find an answer, or a better question. I’m a very immersive writer and an immersive reader. I need to feel the story. All my stories, irrespective of genre, explore a character’s relationship with others, with themselves, and with the world around them. I feel their yearning and my quest begins.

Because my life is very busy, I’ve taught myself to write in the moment. I call it Sudden: writing on the go. Chunking in bits and pieces, scraps and notes to self, spurting in bite size. I jot down points that are little triggers, simple word or phrase prompts—mini scenes that don’t have to be perfect. Later, when I have time, I have all the minis to develop into robust scenes.

What’s next for you? Will you be writing more stories set in Sauútiverse, or more entries in the Outbreeds series? Do you have other forthcoming titles and projects?

In 2026, I have a Sauútiverse novel, Crimson in Quietus, an Afrocentric novel by Meerkat Press, Muntu, a novella by Bad Hand Books (you can pre-order it already, comes with a signed bookplate!), and a collection of short stories, Black Dingo, by Flame Tree and distributed by Simon and Schuster. In 2027, I have another collection of short stories, The Rawness of You, half of which comprises Sauútiverse stories—this is also by Meerkat Press. Let’s just say I am very prolific. Find my works on my website: eugenbacon.com.

Gosh, I newly joined TikTok—it’s scary as hell. What a minefield! Find me @EugenBacon. Also @genni.bsky.social.

Tell us about your library. What’s on your own shelves?

Toni Morrison’s Sula, Song of Solomon, Tar Baby, The Bluest Eye, Beloved… um… everything. Michael Ondaatje’s Divisadero, love it to bits. Peter Temple’s Truth, The Broken Shore—an Aussie literary crime writer who writes the best dialogue I’ve ever read. Octavia E. Butler, Anthony Doerr, Chinua Achebe, Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, Ray Bradbury, N.K. Jemisin, Eugen Bacon, Eugen Bacon, Eugen Bacon…

What have you been reading lately, and what would you recommend to other readers?

I’m currently reading books as a juror (chair) for the Otherwise Awards 2025. Can’t reveal my favourites yet!

But this year, I’d recommend other readers to check out Kathe Koja’s Dark Factory and Dark Matter, and Tavia Nyong’o’s Black Apocalypse: Afrofuturism at the End of the World—it’s a nonfiction that embraces differentiation and survivalist self-invention in the speculative estrangement that Afrofuturism affords in an apocalyptic era.