Chinese author Liu Cixin’s science-fiction novels have sold millions of copies all over the world, and have won him numerous awards, including the global Hugo award for science fiction in 2015. Now, the English translation of the first book in Liu’s Remembrance of Earth’s Past trilogy, The Three-Body Problem, is back in the Amazon bestsellers charts, after the release of a TV adaptation by the creators of Game of Thrones. But a decade ago, few in the UK had heard of Liu and The Three-Body Problem, which begins as a…
Tag: Fiction
Authors ‘excluded from Hugo awards over China concerns’
Leaked emails from the organisers of the prestigious Hugo awards for science fiction and fantasy suggest several authors were excluded from shortlists last year after they were flagged for comments or works that could be viewed as sensitive in China. In January the Hugo awards published the statistics behind the 2023 awards, which were held as part of the World Science Fiction Convention (Worldcon) in the Chinese city of Chengdu in October. The data showed that the New York Times bestseller RF Kuang and the young adult author Xiran Jay…
Science fiction awards held in China under fire for excluding authors
A prestigious literary award for science fiction, which was hosted in China for the first time, has come under fire for excluding several authors from the 2023 awards, raising concerns about interference or censorship in the awards process. The New York Times bestseller Babel by RF Kuang, an episode of the Netflix drama The Sandman and the author Xiran Jay Zhao were among the works and authors excluded from the 2023 Hugo awards, which were administered by the World Science Fiction Convention (Worldcon) in Chengdu in October. Babel, which won…
Golden Age by Wang Xiaobo review – sex, death and politics
During the Cultural Revolution, children killed parents, lives were broken irrevocably, millions were beaten and starved to death – and Wang Xiaobo wrote an erotic comic novel about it all. Now one of China’s most popular modern writers, Wang was completely unknown when he released Golden Age in Taiwan in 1992; now it is available for the first time in complete form in a sparky, earthy translation by the young Chinese American translator Yan Yan. Wang wrote prolifically, torrentially, for the next five years, scandalising the authorities and titillating the…
Golden Age by Wang Xiaobo review – revolution in the bed
Golden Age is a Chinese bestseller by cult writer Wang Xiaobo that now appears in a new translation and charts the story of Wang’s work and sex life, beginning with the Cultural Revolution. The novel opens with a 21-year-old Wang working in a remote commune and starting an affair with the 26-year-old “old shoe” Chen Qingyang. What follows is some of the funniest writing on sex I have encountered, written in the form of “confessions” to the Communist party. Wang’s tone is that of an “intellectual youth” turned peasant diligently…