Welcome to The Feminist Bibliothecary’s Lite Reads, where we read a different short story every week, and then discuss it here and on social media. This is our 113th selection. This week’s Lite Reads selection is Whom My Soul Loves by Rivqa Rafael!
Whom My Soul Loves by Rivqa Rafael is a short story published by Strange Horizons in 2019 and which won a Ditmar Award for Best Short Story in 2020. The story is about Osnat, a young woman who can communicate with spirits, as she tries to exorcise a dybbuk from Mrs. Stein. The story includes a number of Hebrew terms and phrases, all of which can be translated quickly through google if you’re unsure (although if you have any difficulties, please feel free to leave a comment or send me a message and I’ll do my best to assist with any words you don’t have a translation for). Whom My Soul Loves includes the following Content Warnings: disregard for personal autonomy, death/dying, sexism/gender discrimination, shaming, slurs.
Rivqa Rafael is a queer Australian Jewish science fiction and fantasy writer. According to her website, she “writes short speculative fiction about queer women, Jewish women, cyborg futures, hope in dystopias, and any combination of these.” According to her bio on Strange Horizons, “Her short stories have been published in GlitterShip, Escape Pod, Crossed Genres’ Resist Fascism, and elsewhere, and she recently co-edited award-winning feminist robot anthology Mother of Invention. She can be found online at rivqa.net or on Twitter as @enoughsnark.”
You can read Whom My Soul Loves by Rivqa Rafael in full for free on Strange Horizons. You can also listen to an audio version of the story for free through the Strange Horizons podcast.
Please feel free to leave a comment here, or join the conversation on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, or Instagram. You can also join in on the discussion at Litsy by following @elizabethlk and the #litereads hashtag. You can find our full review on Saturday, April 10.
The Feminist Bibliothecary 