The Worlding of Chinese Science Fiction —A Global Genre and Its Negotiations as World Literature

Abstract

Abstract: This article studies Chinese science fiction's “global” impact as a new wave, and examines three implications of the term “worlding”, as world-building in science fiction, as the genre's becoming world literature, and as its representation of the invisible China as a hidden part of the world. The article refers to David Damrosch's concept of “world literature” as well as Istvan Csicsery-Ronay, Jr's argument about “global science fiction”, and polemicize these notions in the context of Chinese science fiction. The article mainly focuses on the works by Liu Cixin, with discussions extended to Han Song, Chen Qiufan, and other writers. The article also asks what remains invisible after Chinese science fiction has taken the center stage, while looking deeper into the genre's ethical commitment and cultural subversions.

Key words: science fiction, world literature, global genre, translation, new wave, the invisible

摘要： 本文讨论的是中国科幻小说作为一次新浪潮运动所引发的“全球”影响,借用“世界”这个词的动词意义来探讨三种情形:科幻小说自身形式中的世界建构;科幻小说进入世界文学的过程;科幻小说将一个原来不可见的中国呈现给世界的表现形态。本文引用达姆罗什的“世界文学”概念,以及伊斯塔范·西瑟瑞－罗内有关“全球科幻小说”的论点,在使用这些概念时,充分意识到它们在中文语境中导致的问题。本文重点讨论的是刘慈欣的作品及其翻译,同时也延伸讨论韩松、陈楸帆及其他作家。本文并且追问当中国科幻小说已经占据世界科幻舞台中心位置之后,它还有哪些方面是不可见的,以此来更深入认知科幻小说的伦理承担与文化挑战。

关键词: 科幻小说, 世界文学, 全球文类, 翻译, 新浪潮, 不可见

Song Mingwei, Wang Xiaohui. The Worlding of Chinese Science Fiction —A Global Genre and Its Negotiations as World Literature[J]. Comparative Literature in China, 2022, 0(2): 81-100.

宋明炜, 汪晓慧. 在“世界”中的中国科幻小说——科幻作为一种全球文类,及其成为世界文学的可能与问题[J]. 中国比较文学, 2022, 0(2): 81-100.

References

Apter, Emily. Against World Literature: On the Politics of Untranslatability. London: Verso, 2013.
Bao, Shu. “Songs of Ancient Earth.” The Reincarnated Giant: An Anthology of Twenty-First-Century Chinese Science Fiction. Eds. Mingwei Song and Theodore Huters. New York: Columbia University Press, 2018. 375－409.
---. “What Has Passed Shall in Kinder Light Appear.” Broken Stars: Contemporary Chinese Science Fiction in Translation. Trans. Ken Liu. New York: Tor Books, 2019. 152－222.
Braidotti, Rosi. The Posthuman. Cambridge: Polity Press, 2013.
陈楸帆:《荒潮》。上海:上海文艺出版社,2019年。
---. Waste Tide. Trans. Ken Liu. New York: Tor Books, 2019.
Clarke, Arthur C. “The Star.” The Collected Stories of Arthur C. Clarke. New York: Tom Doherty Associates Book, 2000. 517－522.
Csicsery-Ronay, Istvan, Jr.. “What Do We Mean When We Say ‘Global Science Fiction’? Reflections on a New Nexus.” Science Fiction Studies 3(2012): 478－493.
---. “This Fractal, Alien World: SF in the Global Moment.” Unpublished presentation at Wellesley College, March, 2013. 8－9.
Damrosch, David. “The Politics of Global English.” English Language and Literature 2(2014): 193－209.
---. What Is World Literature?. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2003.
Deleuze, Gilles and Félix Guattari. Anti-Oedipus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1983.
飞氘:“寂寞的伏兵:新世纪科幻小说中的中国形象”,《2010年度中国最佳科幻小说集》,吴岩、郭凯主编。成都:四川人民出版社,2011年。317。
[Fei, Dao: “The Lonely Hidden Army: The Image of China in the Science Fiction of the New Century” (ji mo de fu bing: xin shi ji ke huan xiao shuo zhong de zhong guo xing xiang). 2010 Best Chinese Science Fiction Collection. Eds. Wu Yan and Guo Kai. Chengdu: Sichuan People's Publishing House, 2011. 317.
Gao, Charlotte. “‘A Community of Shared Future’: One Short Phrase for UN, One Big Victory for China?” The Diplomat. 5 Nov. 2017. thediplomat.com. 18 Nov. 2020. ＜https://thediplomat.com/2017/11/a-community-of-shared-future-one-short-phrase-for-un-one-big-victory-for-china/.＞.
韩松:“新冠肺炎沉重打击了科幻自信”。韩松的微博,2020－2－3,新浪微博,2020－2－14。＜https://www.weibo.com/ttarticle/p/show?id=2309404467892325318746.＞.
[Han,Song. “COVID-19 Dealt a Heavy Blow to Science Fiction”(xin guan fei yan chen zhong da ji le ke huan zi xin ). The weibo of Han Song. 3 Feb. 2020. Weibo.com. 14 Oct. 2020. ＜https://www.weibo.com/ttarticle/p/show?id=2309404467892325318746.＞.]
——:《亡灵》。上海:上海文艺出版社,2018年a。
[---. Dead Souls (wang ling). Shanghai: Shanghai Literature and Art Publishing House, 2018c.]
——:《驱魔》。上海:上海文艺出版社,2017年。
[---. Exorcism (qu mo). Shanghai: Shanghai Literature and Art Publishing House, 2017.]
——:《看的恐惧》。北京:人民邮电出版社,2012年。
[---. The Fear of Seeing (kan de kong ju). Beijing: Posts and Telecom Press, 2012.]
——:《医院》。上海:上海文艺出版社,2016年。
[---. Hospital (yi yuan). Shanghai: Shanghai Literature and Art Publishing House,2016.]
---. “The Passengers and the Creator.” The Reincarnated Giant: An Anthology of Twenty-First-Century Chinese Science Fiction. Eds. Mingwei Song and Theodore Huters. New York: Columbia University Press, 2018b. 279－312.
---. “The Regenerated Bricks.” The Reincarnated Giant: An Anthology of Twenty-First-Century Chinese Science Fiction. Eds. Mingwei Song and Theodore Huters. New York: Columbia University Press, 2018c. 3－44.
---. “Salinger and the Koreans.” Broken Stars: Contemporary Chinese Science Fiction in Translation. Trans. and ed. Ken Liu. New York: Tor Books, 2019a. 125－133.
---. “Submarines.” Broken Stars: Contemporary Chinese Science Fiction in Translation. Trans. and ed. Ken Liu. New York: Tor Books, 2019b. 113－123.
——:《地铁》。上海:上海人民出版社,2010年。
[---. Subway (di tie). Shanghai: Shanghai People's Publishing House, 2010.]
Hayles, H. Katherine. How We Became Posthuman: Virtual Bodies in Cybernetics, Literature, and Informatics. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999.
Heidegger, Martin. “The Origin of the Work of Art.” Basic Writings of Martin Heidegger. New York: Harper Perennial, 1993. 143－212.
---. Poetry, Language, Thought. New York: Harper Perennial, 2001.
Hitchcock, Susan Tyler. Frankenstein: A Cultural History. New York: Norton, 2007.
Isaacson, Nathanial. Celestial Empire: The Emergence of Chinese Science Fiction. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 2017.
Kakutani, Michiko. “Obama's Secret to Surviving the White House: Books.” New York Times, 16 Jan. 2017. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/16/books/obamas-secret-to-surviving-the-white-house-years-books.html.
Langer, Jessica. Postcolonialism and Science Fiction. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011.
刘慈欣:“SF 教——论科幻小说对宇宙的描写”,《刘慈欣谈科幻》。武汉:湖北科学技术出版社,2014年。86－89。
[Liu, Cixin. “The Cult of SF: On Depictions of the Universe in Science Fiction” (SF jiao-lun ke huan xiao shuo dui yu zhou de miao xie). Liu Cixin on Science Fiction. Wuhan: Hubei Science & Technology Press, 2014. 86－89.]
---. The Dark Forest. Trans. Joel Martinsen. New York: Tor Books, 2015.
---. Death's End. Trans. Ken Liu. New York: Tor Books, 2016a.
---. The Wandering Earth. Trans. Holger Nahm. Beijing: Beijing Guomi Digital, 2013.
---. The Wandering Earth. Trans. Ken Liu. et. al. London: Head of Zeus, 2017.
---. “The Worst of All Possible Universes and the Best of All Possible Earths: Three Body and Chinese Science Fiction.” Broken Star: Contemporary Chinese Science Fiction in Translation. Trans. and ed. Ken Liu. New York: Tor Books, 2016b. 361－367.
Milner, Andrew. “Science Fiction and the Literary Field.” Science Fiction Studies 3(2011): 393－411.
Mitchell, David. Cloud Atlas. New York: Random House, 2004.
Roberts, Adam. Science Fiction. London: Routledge, 2000.
Said, Edward. Humanism and Democratic Criticism. New York: Columbia University Press, 2004.
Scholes, Robert. Structural Fabulation: An Essay on Fiction of the Future. Notre Dame and London: University of Notre Dame Press, 1975.
Smith, Andrew. ed. The Cambridge Companion to Frankenstein. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016.
Song, Mingwei. “After 1989: The New Wave of Chinese Science Fiction.” China Perspectives 1(2015): 7－13. ＜https://doi.org/10.4000/chinaperspectives.6618.＞.
---. “Liu Cixin's Three-Body Trilogy: Between the Sublime Cosmos and the Micro Era.” Lingua Cosmica: Science Fiction from around the World. Ed. Dale Knickerbocker. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2018. 107－128.
Spark, Muriel. Child of Light: Mary Shelley. New York: Welcome Rain, 1987.
Suvin, Darko. Metamorphosis of Science Fiction: On the Poetics and History of Literary Genre. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1979.
The Basel Action Network. “Exporting Harm: The High-Tech Trashing of Asia.” 28 Nov. 2020. ＜https://static1.squarespace.com/static/558f1c27e4b0927589e0edad/t/56184364e4b0cf5700f852af/1444430692735/Exporting+Harm+Report.pdf.＞.
The Guardian. “George RR Martin ‘Relieved’ after Sad Puppies' Hugo Awards Defeat.” 26 Aug. 2015. https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/aug/26/george-rr-martin-relieved-after-sad-puppies-hugo-awards-defeat.
Wagner, Rudolf. “Lobby Literature: The Archaeology and Present Functions of Science Fiction in the People's Republic of China.” After Mao: Chinese Literature and Society, 1978－1981. Ed. Jeffrey Kinkley. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1985. 17－62.
Wall Street Journal. “Chinese Sci-Fi Novel, ‘The Three-Body Problem,’ Touches Down in U.S.” 4 Nov. 2014.
Wang, David Der-wei. Fin-de-siècle Splendor: Repressed Modernities of Late Qing Fiction, 1849－1911. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1997.
---. ed. A New Literary History of Modern China. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2017.
Xinhua News. “Chinese Sci-Fi Masterpiece Hits Record for E-Book Sales.” Xinhua News. 16 Aug. 2018. xinhuanet.com. 18 Nov. 2020.＜http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/201808/16/c_137395750.htm.＞.

[1]	Wang Ning. Science Fiction as World Literature [J]. Comparative Literature in China, 2023, 0(4): 3-13.
[2]	Wang Feng. How Science Fiction Shapes Posthuman [J]. Comparative Literature in China, 2023, 0(4): 14-28.
[3]	Wu Yan. Blueprint Futurism Science Fiction: Origin, Develop-ment and Nature [J]. Comparative Literature in China, 2023, 0(4): 29-41.
[4]	Wu Weiyi. The Science Fictional Imagination of World Literature: Taking the Hybridity of “Good Hunting” as an Example [J]. Comparative Literature in China, 2023, 0(4): 61-72.
[5]	Zhang Zhiyao. The Bonze (1769) and 18th-century Anglican Ideas of Salvation: A Study of English Pseudotranslations from Chinese Sources [J]. Comparative Literature in China, 2023, 0(4): 226-248.
[6]	Chen Rongnü. Rebirth and Hybridity: The Cross-Cultural Translation of Classical Drama [J]. Comparative Literature in China, 2023, 0(3): 2-19.
[7]	Zhang Jialing. Yu Hua in Germany [J]. Comparative Literature in China, 2023, 0(3): 141-156.
[8]	. [J]. Comparative Literature in China, 2023, 0(2): 24-44.
[9]	. [J]. Comparative Literature in China, 2023, 0(2): 45-58.
[10]	. [J]. Comparative Literature in China, 2023, 0(2): 59-73.
[11]	. [J]. Comparative Literature in China, 2023, 0(2): 91-108.
[12]	. [J]. Comparative Literature in China, 2023, 0(2): 216-231.
[13]	. [J]. Comparative Literature in China, 2023, 0(2): 232-245.
[14]	. [J]. Comparative Literature in China, 2023, 0(1): 2-19.
[15]	. [J]. Comparative Literature in China, 2023, 0(1): 37-53.