When Aman J. Bedi sits down to write, the weight of his journey, from Mysuru to Vizag, Bengaluru, Bangkok, Christchurch, and now Melbourne, inevitably seeps into his words.
“I don’t think my writing would read and sound the way it did without the experience of living in all these places,” Bedi reflects. “The best writing, to me anyway, often mimics or replicates its author’s unique set of life experiences. It took over a hundred thousand discarded words to find mine, and when I finally did, I could clearly see my journey reflected in it.”
That voice has now found itself on the global stage. Bedi’s debut novel Kavithri (published by Gollancz), an epic fantasy rooted in South Asian traditions, has been shortlisted for the inaugural Aldiss Award for world building in speculative fiction. Named after science fiction grandmaster Brian Aldiss, the award recognises excellence in creating immersive worlds across science fiction and fantasy. The winner will be announced on Nov. 2, 2025, at the World Fantasy Convention in Brighton, UK.
Prior to this, in April 2025, Kavithri was shortlisted for the Aurealis Awards, Australia’s premier awards for speculative fiction, for Best Fantasy Novel.
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For Bedi, both these awards have validated years of solitary work. “Writing novels is a lonely hobby,” he shares candidly. “The feedback loop can take months or even years to close. To now get nominated for two awards in the space of half a year is incredibly validating. I still question everything I write, I wouldn’t improve if I didn’t, but I have a lot more confidence and feel a small burst of pride when I sit down to write these days.”
Relevant themes for diaspora
At the heart of Kavithri is Kavi, a railway porter drawn into a struggle against colonial necromancers and jinn in a post-1857 alternate India. Bedi drew inspiration from his childhood in Vizag, where remnants of colonial rule still loomed. “At the time, large parts of the city still had stark reminders of British colonial Rule. Many buildings from the era remained, St Aloysius’ Anglo-Indian High School, built by the East India Company in 1847, was still around; and some areas of the city had not lost their British names.”
He continues: “When I started writing Kavithri, I essentially wrote a post-colonial Vizag and then began adding the fantasy elements I needed to drive the story forward.”
For the Indian diaspora, Bedi’s work carries a particular resonance. “My worldbuilding is heavily rooted in my upbringing in South India. Most of my characters speak and behave like the people I grew up around… and almost all my point-of-view characters are, at their core, outsiders or immigrants,” he explains. “I think fans of speculative fiction within the Indian diaspora will find something to relate to in my books.”
The book doesn’t shy away from India’s complex realities. “It is impossible to write a novel inspired by modern India and ignore the effects of colonialism, caste, and oppression. To do so would be disrespectful and disingenuous,” Bedi says. Aman J. Bedi
Writing fiction in Indian English
If sweeping history grounds the novel, psychology gives it depth. Trained in experimental psychology, Aman J. Bedi infused the story with themes of intergenerational trauma. “I think I was able to apply some of the things I’d learned to ground Kavi’s character and background, and to make her journey feel more real.”
Much of Bedi’s imagination traces back to his childhood reading. “My mother used to buy me the Amar Chitra Katha versions of the Indian epics, and as a boy something that always amazed me was the sheer sense of scale in these stories,” he recalls.
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Comics like Chacha Chaudhary, which he calls “the first sci-fi I was ever exposed to,” also left a mark. “Kavithri has, as the story progresses, a similar sense of scale but as seen through the eyes of a single character. It includes elements of heroic fantasy that I loved in (David) Gemmell’s novels, the action and progression that I enjoyed in manga like Vagabond and Berserk, and the powerful emotional payoffs that I personally look for in everything I read and watch.”
The success of Kavithri has already paved the way for a sequel, City of Jackals, which Aman J. Bedi says was inspired in part by the 1995 Tamil hit Baashha. “The book has fist fights, gangsters, revelations about Kavi’s past, more steam-rickshaws, magic, and of course, revenge.”
Publishing has changed a lot since Bedi queried Kavithri. “At the time, besides Samit Basu, I couldn’t find a single Indian-born SFF (science fantasy fiction) author signed with a major publisher. Today, I think writers from our community have a genuine chance.”
For young writers in the diaspora, Aman J. Bedi has a clear message: lean into your uniqueness.
“There is something musical and captivating about fiction written in Indian-English. Lean into it. There will always be people who don’t get it. But the ones who do are who you are writing for.”
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