From the South China Morning Post:
The science-fiction genre in China was little known before Liu Cixin was honoured with the Hugo Award for best novel in 2015 for The Three-Body Problem. The first book in Liu’s Remembrance of Earth’s Past trilogy, it tells of an alien invasion during the Cultural Revolution and has sold more than a million copies in China alone. The English translation was recommended by Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg to members of his book club, and praised by former US president Barack Obama as “wildly imaginative, really interesting”.
Last year, Liu’s compatriot Hao Jingfang earned a Hugo Award for Folding Beijing, in which the city is divided into zones, each with a different number of hours in the day.
Liu has been nominated for another Hugo Award this year, for the final episode in his trilogy, Death’s End.
. . . .
The two winning books are now being adapted for the big screen in China, marking a turning point for Chinese sci-fi and potentially expanding the genre’s exposure globally.
Some 104 original sci-fi titles were published in China in 2016, compared to 75 the previous year, and 461 novelettes were released last year.
Author Regina Wang Kanyu, 27, a long-time sci-fi fan, has witnessed its growth in recent years. “It’s the golden age of Chinese science fiction,” she says.
. . . .
Last month, writers Regina Wang, Wang Yao and Hao Jingfang attended Melon Hong Kong, the city’s first science-fiction conference to bring together Chinese and Western writers.
“It’s a market miracle,” says Wang Yao, who goes by the pen name Xia Jia. “Ten years ago [when I started writing], we could never have imagined that these opportunities would be available,” she says, referring to the translation of Chinese sci-fi books and film adaptions.
It’s not the first golden age of sci-fi in China, though. Wang Yao says that was between 1978 and 1983 during reforms initiated by late Deng Xiaoping. “It was thought that science fiction could cultivate a scientific spirit, and the authorities assigned authors to write books in the genre,” says Wang.
. . . .
Although investors are eyeing sci-fi’s entertainment industry potential, the literature itself is not so highly valued. “The payment writers receive for fiction writing is very small. I also write for fashion magazines, which pay a lot more,” says Regina Wang. Since it is impossible to make ends meet writing sci-fi, most authors do it simply as a hobby.
Link to the rest at South China Morning Post
> Some 104 original sci-fi titles were published in China in 2016
That’s just… sad. A fan could easily keep up with all the new Chinese SF and have plenty of time to catch up on the old stuff.
That was true in the US all the way to the 70’s. In the early days through all you needed was to buy maybe three magazines a month. Things started to change as LoTR word of mouth boosted fantasy sales from the 60’s and 2001 and, most especially, STAR WARS, brought the genre to the attention of the masses and dreams of $$$$ to publishers.
Most non-anglo societies struggle to do even that much. Japan being a welcome exception and even there the bulk of the output is channeled into manga/anime.
It’s a culture thing. The required mindset is…uncommon…
(Way too many people are too tied up struggling to survive the present to have time to ponder the future.)
The Chinese government is trying to contain a cultural expansion based, not on politics or philosophy, but standard of living, and I think the Chinese people are slowly returning to their roots in a cultural sense. In time they’ll end up with something that’s neither democracy as we know it, nor communism as the Soviets know it, but something that is uniquely Chinese. And that will be reflected in their sci-fi. 🙂
Freedom of thought and expression is a standard of living matter, as demonstrated at Tianamen. It is also why it is fiercely defended in the US from both government and non-government encroachment.
China’s system is, however, truly approaching its “cultural norm”. All it takes is one “great leader” cementing his power enough to pass power on to his descendant. After that it’ll be a matter of another generation before they have an emperor de jure as well as defacto. And neither event is terribly far off.
I’ve speculated about a second Han dynasty in my writing, but I think it’s a mistake to equate the Chinese experience with that of, say, North Korea. If dynastic rule does re-emerge in China, I think it will be…benevolent, eventually.
That has been the pattern of Chinese dynastic change in the past – periods of intense turmoil and bloodshed followed by decades of peace and prosperity once the new dynasty is established. After all, even the barbarian Kublai Khan was ‘civilised’ in a generation.:)
Eventually? Maybe.
Autocratic consolidations tend to be bloody and the People’s Army has to be defanged. That’s where Xi’s “anti-corruption” purge is going to have to prove itself. It’s easy to purge “corrupt” oligarchs and local politicians behind the ghost cities but the military?
The current system is inherently unstable with its multiple poles of mingled political, military, and economic power. They need to consolidate before it leads to open conflict.
I suspect the “rise of China” will end up like the 80’s “rise of Japan”, but bloody.
I think you’re right in the short term – the warlords are still jockeying for power – but eventually some fusion of old and new will emerge, and I suspect it will be based on some kind of meritocrisy because of the Chinese people’s historical respect for learning. Exactly what form it takes is moot. I definitely hope it isn’t bloody though. :/
“Since it is impossible to make ends meet writing sci-fi, most authors do it simply as a hobby.”
And that hobby is stealing eyes and changing thoughts, things those in power try their best to stomp on once they take notice of it.
Yup.
Good SF asks too many questions and invariably ends up asking the “wrong” questions.
The Soviet Union too produced some SF in tbe 60’s and 70’s but, constrained by the system, it really didn’t add up to much.
Just a matter of time… 🙁