Benjanun Sriduangkaew

Benjanun Sriduangkaew is a Thai science fiction and fantasy writer, who is also known for her controversial online criticism. She was a finalist for the 2014 John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer and the 2014 BSFA Award for Best Short Fiction, for Scale-Bright.

Life
Sriduangkaew was born in Pattani province in southern Thailand. After attending university in Bangkok, she worked in Manila, Jakarta, and Hong Kong. In 2013, Sriduangkaew said that she had earned her bachelor's degree "some twelve years ago" and that she had not been fluent in English at the time.

Work
Sriduangkaew began publishing short fiction in 2012, with "Courtship in the Country of the Machine Gods", and established a name for herself with a string of high-profile short stories in Clarkesworld Magazine and elsewhere, which led to her nomination for the John W. Campbell Award.

Her first long-form publication was the urban fantasy novella Scale-Bright, published in 2014. A follow-up to her three Sun-Moon Cycle stories, it is a love story about a young woman from Hong Kong who has to rescue her sister from Heaven. Reviewing the novella for Tor.com, Niall Alexander described it as "an achievement without equal", appreciating its "delicately drawn characters", "affecting narrative", and the author's prose skills.

Her second novella, Winterglass, was published in 2017. It is a science fantasy retelling of the story of the Snow Queen. A Publishers Weekly's reviewer considered that the "promising novella" provided "variations on the theme of strong female characters" but was marred by an "uneven plot and some missed opportunities for complex worldbuilding".

Her third novella, And Shall Machines Surrender, was published in 2019. It is a science fiction story focusing on artificial intelligences and their relationships to humanity. Reviewing the novella in The Future Fire, J. Moufawad-Paul wrote: “And Shall Machines Surrender is the perfect example of how much can possibly be packed into a novella. The equal depth of style, story, characterization, and world-building is quite striking”; and, “Due to the strength of And Shall Machines Surrender — its clarity and intricacy, its ability to compress complexity into a minimalist structure — it is almost criminal that Sriduangkaew is not a household name”.

Online activity
In 2014, Sriduangkaew was revealed to have been the controversial blogger and book reviewer "Requires Hate" (also known as "Requires Only That You Hate", as well as "Winterfox"). Using these internet identities, she published violent critiques of what she considered to be racist, sexist, heteronormative, or colonial themes in works of science fiction and fantasy; these critiques included both personal insults and threats of murder and rape. Media outlets and social media users referred to Sriduangkaew as a "notorious troll". Many of her targets were themselves young, female, transgender, and/or persons of color. In reporting on Sriduangkaew's online activities, the Daily Dot wrote that it is not certain whether or not she is indeed a Thai writer, or whether Benjanun Sriduangkaew is a pseudonym or her real name.

In October 2014, Sriduangkaew posted an apology on her blog, admitting to being "a horrendous asshole" and causing pain to others, while also denying certain allegations that she had made rape threats, stating that other accounts had impersonated her. She shut down her original "Requires Only That You Hate" blog but started another under a new title, which remained active until 2020.

A blog post by fellow writer Laura J. Mixon critiquing Sriduangkaew's behavior won Mixon the 2015 Hugo Award for Best Fan Writer.

Reaction to the revelation of Sriduangkaew's alternate online identities caused consternation among science fiction writers and fans. In a blog post in 2015, Sriduangkaew claimed she had become the target of harassment and cyberstalking campaigns after her internet identities were revealed, while conceding that "I've been shitty in the past".