Sinopticon 2021: A Celebration of Chinese Science Fiction

A stunning collection of the best in Chinese Science Fiction, from Award-Winning legends to up-and-coming talent, all translated here into English for the first time.

This celebration of Chinese Science Fiction — thirteen stories, all translated for the first time into English — represents a unique exploration of the nation’s speculative fiction from the late 20th century onwards, curated and translated by critically acclaimed writer and essayist Xueting Christine Ni.

From the renowned Jiang Bo’s ‘Starship: Library' to Regina Kanyu Wang’s ‘The Tide of Moon City', and Anna Wu’s ‘Meisje met de Parel', this is a collection for all fans of great fiction.

Award winners, bestsellers, screenwriters, playwrights, philosophers, university lecturers and computer programmers, these thirteen writers represent the breadth of Chinese SF, from new to old: Gu Shi, Han Song, Hao Jingfang, Nian Yu, Wang Jinkang, Zhao Haihong, Tang Fei, Ma Boyong, Anna Wu, A Que, Bao Shu, Regina Kanyu Wang and Jiang Bo.

A graduate of Shanghai Jiaotong University of Communications, Nian Yu is a contracted Storycom writer, and a self-proclaimed post-95 avant-garde sci fi author. Ever since her debut Wild Fire, she has been exploring the fantasy imagination, not only creating scifi, but fantasy and fairy tales, publishing many pieces in Science Fiction World and Sci-Fi Gin—Youth Edition. She won the New Author Silver Award at the 7th Xingyun and has published a short fiction collection, Lilian is Everywhere.

Zhao Haihong holds an MA in English and American literature from Zhejiang University and a Ph.D in art history from the China Academy of Arts. She teaches at Zhejiang Gongshang University in Hangzhou. She has been publishing SF stories since 1996 and is the winner of the National Award For Outstanding Children’s Literature and a six-time winner of the GalaxyAward. Her translated stories “Exuviation” and “Windhorse” have appeared in Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet; and “The Starry Sky over the Southern Isle” has been published on Asimov’s Science Fiction. Her story “1923, A Fantasy” (translated by Nicky Harman and Pang Zhaoxia) was included in the The Reincarnated Giants: An Anthology of 21st-Century Chinese Science Fiction by Linda Rui Feng. She is currently working with publishers around the world on stories for several upcoming anthologies.

Regina Kanyu Wang is a bilingual writer from Shanghai who has won multiple Xingyun Awards, the SF Comet International SF Writing Competition, and the Annual Best Works of Shanghai Writers’ Association Awards. Her stories can be found in Shanghai Literature, Galaxy’s Edge, Clarkesworld and more. Her essays can be found in publications such as Mithila Review, Broken Stars, and Korean Literature Now. She has published two science fiction story collections, Of Cloud and Mist 2.2 and The Seafood Restaurant in Chinese and her works have been translated into multiple languages and published around the world. She is also a PhD fellow of the CoFUTURES project at the University of Oslo, researching Chinese science fiction from gender and environmental perspectives.

Wang Jikang, born in 1948, is a renowned science fiction writer, senior engineer. Winner of multiple Yinhe Awards, he is the only writer to have won the Lifetime Achievement Award simultaneously at the Yinhe as well as the Xingyun. Launching his writing career in the early 1990s, he has composed over a hundred works of science fiction, being named one the Three Leading Lights of Chinese Sci-Fi. His signature works include The Return of Adam, “Sowing on Venus” and The Song of Life.

Tang Fei, writer, commentator. Member of the Shanghai Writer’s Association and the SFWA. Her signature works include Paradise in the Clouds, The Person who Saw Cetus and The Anonymous Banquet. Since 2013, ten of her stories have been translated and published around the world; her novella The Panda Keeper won Best Microfiction at 2019’s Smokelong Quarterly, Wu Ding’s Journey to the West won the Silver Prize for Most Popular Deduction Fiction at the Speculative Fiction in Translation Awards, and “The Robe” won Best Short Story at the Yinli (China Reader’s Choice) SF Awards. Apart from writing, she also dabbles in other art forms such as literary criticism, poetry, installation art and photography. Her commentary pieces have been published in The Economics Observer (China), Hong Kong and Shenzhen Literary Review.