Speculative fiction that examines race, trauma, and survival in heavily stratified worlds has established a vital space in modern science fiction and fantasy. Rivers Solomon gained critical recognition with their 2017 debut novel, An Unkindness of Ghosts, which depicts life aboard a generation starship structured around strict racial hierarchies. Writing about life in the margins, Solomon crafts narrative landscapes where marginalized voices navigate survival, historical memory, and systemic oppression.
Career & Background
Born on Turtle Island in the United States, Solomon grew up across California, Indiana, Texas, and New York. They graduated from Stanford University with a degree in Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity before earning a Master of Fine Arts in fiction writing from the Michener Center for Writers at the University of Texas at Austin. Solomon was named a finalist for the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer and received the 2018 CLMP Firecracker Award in Fiction for An Unkindness of Ghosts. Their prose has appeared in publications including The Paris Review, The New York Times, The New York Times Magazine, and The Best American Short Stories. Solomon subsequently relocated to Cambridge, England, where they currently live in the United Kingdom with their family.
Writing Style & Themes
Solomon's writing bridges science fiction, gothic fantasy, and horror to explore themes of colonialism, bodily autonomy, gender identity, and intergenerational trauma. A refugee of the transatlantic slave trade, Solomon frequently situates their stories in liminal environments where characters confront institutional power structures and reconstruct suppressed histories. Their fiction combines meticulous speculative world-building with intense, character-driven narrative arcs.
Major Works
- An Unkindness of Ghosts — Published in 2017, this debut speculative novel takes place aboard the Matilda, a generation starship organized into a rigid racial caste system, following an outcast protagonist who uncovers secrets about the ship and her mother's past.
- The Deep — Published in 2019, this novella expands upon the Hugo Award-nominated song by the hip-hop group clipping., centering on an underwater society founded by the descendants of pregnant African women thrown overboard during the transatlantic slave trade. The book won the 2020 Lambda Literary Award.
- Sorrowland — Released in May 2021, this novel blends gothic horror, body transformation, and historical trauma as a young pregnant woman escapes an oppressive compound and undergoes physical changes while surviving in the wilderness. The novel won the Otherwise Award.
- The Vela: The Complete Season 1 — Solomon served as part of the collaborative writing team for this serialized space opera project from Serial Box, focusing on a galactic refugee crisis and impending environmental collapse across a dying star system.
- Model Home — A novel in Solomon's bibliography examining family dynamics, psychological tension, and systemic pressures within a domestic setting.
