For a few days in October 2023, the capital of the science fiction world was Chengdu, China. Fans traveled from around the world as Worldcon, sci-fi’s biggest annual event, was held in China for the first time.
Liu Cixin, a megastar author with high-profile fans such as Mark Zuckerberg and Barack Obama, has made Chinese sci-fi a global phenomenon. But the genre is facing skepticism from international fans concerned about the Chinese government’s censorship. Read more here:A child watches a video depicting the science fiction universe from a trilogy by Chinese author Liu Cixin in Chengdu, Sichuan province on Saturday, Oct. 21, 2023.
“Sci-fi has always been a bridge between different cultures and countries,” says Yao Haijun, the editor-in-chief of Science Fiction World, China’s oldest sci-fi magazine. “Every author can have their own vision of the future, and they can coexist and be respected even if they clash.” In The Hague, Shen and former magazine editor Yang Xiao used toy pandas and postcards of Chengdu to make the case that the city — more than 1,800 kilometers from Beijing — was friendly and safe to visit.
Sci-fi saw a resurgence as China began opening to the world after the Mao era in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Authors like Zheng Wenguang and Ye Yonglie wroteBut in the early 1980s, Beijing initiated a nationwide “spiritual pollution cleaning” campaign to quash the influence of the decadent West, and sci-fi was accused of being unscientific and out of line with official ideology. Most of the young publications were shuttered.
But “The Three-Body Problem,” first serialized by Science Fiction World in 2006, reached a level of popularity unseen by other Chinese works, says Yao, who edited the novel. A woman walks past copies of "The Three-Body Problem" on display at a bookstore in Beijing on Monday, Feb. 19, 2024. Song says Liu hit a sweet spot between familiar Western genre tropes and references to China’s difficult history. The trilogy is now “a classic,” he added.
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