There’s a wealth of speculative fiction writers in The Philippines. Many of them are women. The ones I am familiar with all write in English, though I am sure there will be some who write in Tagalog, and quite possibly some who write in Spanish as well. As with Aliette, though their words may not need translating, they are very much presenting a non-white culture to the Anglophone world. I mention Rochita and Eliza because I’m familiar with their work and like it, but really you should seek out Alternative Alamat and the various other anthologies published by Flipside (the company Charles Tan works for) because there are lots of great people you can read.
I also recommend listening to the Small Blue Planet episode with Charles and Dean Alfar as guests as you’ll learn a lot more from them than you can from me.
Oh wow, this is really interesting! I know that WITMonth is unintentionally causing us to forget writers from a lot of “out-of-the-way” countries where people predominantly write in English (lots of books from India, the Philippines, Africa…), but I’m glad to see you’re addressing that. Honestly, when August is over I’m probably going to go on a world-wide English tour to fill in those exact gaps.
In general, I know I’m not commenting on all your posts, but I’m reading them and enjoying them immensely and am thrilled at your awesome level of participation in WITMonth. You’ve given a ton of new recommendations, and a really interesting perspective on things. So thank you!
You could add the Nordics. Many of their writers are so fluent in English that they don’t bother writing in their native tongues. And of course they avoid the publisher bias against translations that way.