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Gollancz pre-empts Mahmud El Sayed’s 'blistering' début science fiction epic
Gollancz has snapped up an “astonishing” début science fiction "Arabfuturism" duology, by the winner of the 2023 Future Worlds Prize for Fantasy and Science Fiction Writers of Colour.
World all-language rights in the two books by Mahmud El Sayed were pre-empted by Gollancz commissioning editor Brendan Durkin from John Baker at Bell Lomax Moreton. The first title, The Republic of Memory, is scheduled for publication in spring 2026.
The first title was described as a “breathtaking work of Arabfuturism set upon the generation spaceship ‘Safina’ during a period of heightened unrest”. With the ship suffering seemingly accidental blackouts, its crew members are forced to come to terms with the inequality dividing them, as the disenfranchised seek to change life on the ship forever.
El Sayed was inspired to write the story by the real-world events of the Arab Spring; Gollancz said it was an ambitious epic, “perfect for fans of The Expanse [series], A Memory Called Empire and Children of Time”. The book also features “Nupol”, a dialect devised by El Sayed that was inspired by a selection of modern languages, Polari and A Clockwork Orange’s "Nadsat".
Durkin said: “The Republic of Memory is a blistering examination of the lengths to which people need to go to bring about lasting change—and the limits of those actions. It has an urgency to it unlike anything I’ve read before, with concerns that are rooted deeply in the real world. But even as it goes to dark places, it never loses its warmth or humanity.”
El Sayed is an east London-based British-Egyptian SFF writer, translator and former journalist. He previously covered “serious” Middle Eastern politics until he “had enough of chasing people up for boring quotes and decided to write about generation ships, sentient libraries and memory taxes instead”.
El Sayed said publication of his book “comes at a time when it is more important than ever to listen to voices from the Middle East, and to imagine Arabs and Muslims in the future. Science fiction has always been a realm for exploring the political and I hope that The Republic of Memory can follow in the best traditions of the genre”.
Baker called El Sayed a “once-in-a-generation [ship] talent”, adding: “My jaw was on the floor as I read The Republic of Memory. It’s a masterpiece of science fiction.”
