2025 Tolkien Lecture: Zen Cho on the fun and freedom of fantasy
Malaysian author Zen Cho delivered the 2025 Tolkien Lecture on Fantasy Literature at the Pichette Auditorium in Pembroke College, Oxford, England on May 19, joining the likes of fellow esteemed fantasy writers such as Rebecca F. Kuang, Guy Gavriel Kay, Victoria Schwab and Susan Cooper.
In the lecture, titled "The Uses Of Fantasy', Cho touched on the importance of fantasy as a genre to writers. A YouTube video of the lecture was uploaded yesterday, allowing Cho's fanbase to catch up on the talk and engage with her insights.
'I'm not that interested in the utilitarian sort of approach to literature that's only interested in asking what it does for the real world. I think it's a big assumption that the physical realm or society is the only real world, right? We all carry worlds inside us, which are arguably as important," said Cho in her presentation.
'The insides of our heads are where we live. So what does fantasy do for your interior world? I find it's a good place to work things out. It allows you to look at things aslant,' she added.
Cho also lamented about how the rise of social media as the main platform for discourse has often stood in the way of exploring nuance and having healthy debates out of fear of being 'cancelled'.
'An art that's made in the spirit of 'I don't want to get anything wrong', 'I don't want to get criticised on social media' – it's not good art. That fear is incredibly damaging to curiosity and exploration and play, which are all necessary conditions for the creation of good art.
'I find fantasy can be useful here. So for an artist, for a thinker, it's a way to introduce some distance from reality. And that can provide cover for ideas and thoughts and feelings that otherwise not only other people might find challenging, but that you yourself might be a bit too scared to acknowledge, much less put on the page,' she explained.
The Petaling Jaya-born Cho went on to discuss generative AI, a contentious topic of concern these days not only for writers and other creatives, but their audiences as well.
'Besides the environmental impact and the infringement of intellectual property rights on which generative AI is founded, one of the things about AI that most troubles me at the moment is how it's being used as a shortcut for living.
'The only way I can wrap my head around this is to say to myself, people are overwhelmed by the effort of living in this world. But I think in a world that seems so deliberately designed against human flourishing, art takes on an increased importance,' she said.
Cho, a lawyer who currently resides in Birmingham, England, has won the Hugo, Crawford and British Fantasy Awards, as well as the LA Times Ray Bradbury Prize for her writing.
Her titles include the Sorcerer To the Crown historical fantasy novels, contemporary fantasy Black Water Sister , the Lambda Award-nominated novella The Order Of The Pure Moon Reflected In Water , and a short story collection, Spirits Abroad . Her latest novel, Behind Frenemy Lines , is a contemporary romance set in a London law firm.
The Tolkien Lecture Series, which is held annually, is supported by Pembroke College, the Pembroke Pink Grant, and the Kadas Family Charitable Foundation.
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