Subodhana (Subo) Wijeyeratne

Subodhana Wijeyeratne is a historian of technology with a focus on East Asia in general, and Japan in particular. His primary historical interests are in the history of science and technology, in particular the interaction between humans and large-scale scientific endeavours such as space programs and deep-sea exploration. His PhD explored the development of the Japanese space program within the context of that nation's particular political, social, and geographic conditions in the 20th century. His past articles have featured in venues such as the Asia Pacific Journal: Japan Focus, Historia Scientiarum, Roadsides, and Quest: The History of Spaceflight Quarterly. 

Dr. Wijeyeratne will also have a chapter in the forthcoming work Cosmic Fragments: Displacement and Dislocation in the Global Space Age (ed. Asif Siddiqi, University of Pittsburgh Press, 2024) which will explore the way in which rural areas in Japan incorporated the presence of space research facilities into their identities. His first book-length work, Of Rockets and the Rising Sun, which covers the key decades of Japan's space development from the 1920s to the foundation of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) in 2003, is currently under review at a leading academic press. He is also currently working on two articles, one covering the Sino-Japanese space race (or lack the thereof), and another on female Japanese aviators in the early 1900s.

Dr. Wijeyeratne is also a writer of speculative fiction and has 31 published short stories and three book-length publications to his name. His short form work has appeared in venues like Welkin, Expanded Horizons, and Mythaxis. He has a collection of short stories (Tales from the Stone Lotus) and two novels in print; his latest book-length work, Triangulum: An Epic of the Nine World of Surya, reviewed as an 'inventive, immersive space opera' by Publishers' Weekly, was published in early 2024. He has completed a third novel, A Beast Called Man, and is currently working on his fourth, The Crimson Banner of Dawn. 

You can follow the latest information on his academic and fiction work at subowijeyeratne.com. 

subowijeyeratne.com