Clelia Farris won the Fantascienza.com Award with the novel Rupes Recta, printed by Delos Books; she won the Odissea Award with the novel Nessun uomo è mio fratello and the Kipple Award with the novel La pesatura dell’anima, setting in a uchronic Egypt. In 2012 Kipple Edizioni published the novel La giustizia di Iside. She was a finalist for the Urania Award, the most important Italian award for science-fiction, with the novel Necrospirante. Clelia lives in Cagliari, Sardinia, Italy, and she writes full time.
Clelia’s works in English translation are listed below:
COLLECTIONS
Creative Surgery, translated by Rachel Cordasco and Jennifer Delare (Rosarium Publishing, 2020)
In these mind-bending tales, you’ll find captivating characters with elusive identities like Kieser, who longs to transform himself through horrific procedures in “Creative Surgery;” or Yuliano (“Secret Enemy”), a man with no aesthetic taste; or Gabola, engaged in the battle of a lifetime against the expropriation of the Little Tuvu Hill. With dry and polished prose, like the stones of her native Sardinia, Clelia Farris takes us on adventures among the ruins of a future marred by climate change (“A Day to Remember”) and in a haunting prison inhabited by the enigmatic figure of “Rebecca.” Collected and translated into English for the first time, these seven stories represent some of the greatest works from one of Italy’s best science fiction authors.
NOVELS
Veg-humans, translated by Rachel Cordasco (Future Fiction, 2025)
On an island in the Mediterranean sea, Astarte, an agricultural cooperative of young farmers, is facing the consequences of drought. Despite the World Climate Organization helping populations to move north to the Arctic lands – the only arable lands – the partners of Astarte decide to hire a group of climatologists who promise rain. Yet the solution could be an innovative sunscreen, invented by Gazania, with which to subvert the tendency to Exodus and favor Permanence. Perhaps the remedy is in the “lymphatic” life of the plants that humans should imitate to become … veg-humans… With Veg-humans, Clelia Farris, a leading author of Italian science fiction, embraces the solarpunk genre through an original vision, made of native innovation, radical sustainability, and collective knowledge.
SHORT STORIES
all were translated by Rachel Cordasco, except “Creative Surgery,” which was translated by Jennifer Delare
“A Day to Remember” (Samovar Magazine 2017, Creative Surgery 2020)
In a world that is now mostly underwater, one woman helps her friends and neighbors alter their memories.
“Creative Surgery” (Future Fiction 2018, Creative Surgery 2020)
A researcher grafts limbs from different animals onto one another for a grotesque menagerie…
“The Substance of Ideas” (Future Science Fiction Digest 2018, The Best of World SF 2 2022)
Two friends living on a kibbutz discover a hidden cache of sea urchins that, when eaten, make people go mad.
“Holes” (World Literature Today 2019, Creative Surgery 2020)
A self-aware AI attempts to become human.
“Gabola” (Creative Surgery 2020)
A creator of fake artifacts tries to protect sacred tombs from the depredations of thieves and developers.
“Secret Enemy” (Creative Surgery 2020)
A man confronts an irascible patient…or is it his alter-ego?
“Rebecca” (Creative Surgery 2020)
A woman is trapped in time due to some odd physics deployed by her husband.
“Another Place” (Samovar Magazine, 2021)
Stuck in a timeless, placeless limbo, two sometime-lovers conduct an experiment to break free.
“The Words” (Apex Magazine, 2022)
The twin daughters of famous physicists travel back in time to save Anne Frank.
“Es and Is” (World Literature Today, 2025)
A writer faces a surprising request: to write a negative review.
“Threehearts and Me” (Bourbon Penn, 2025)
A special kind of crab helps an archaeologist make an interesting discovery…
