Durante alguns dias de outubro de 2023, a capital do mundo da ficção científica foi Chengdu, na China. Fãs viajaram de todo o mundo quando a Worldcon, o maior evento anual de ficção científica, foi realizada no país pela primeira vez.
Foi um raro momento em que os fãs chineses e internacionais puderam reunir-se para celebrar as artes sem se preocuparem com a política cada vez mais tensa da relação da China com o Ocidente ou com o controlo cada vez maior de Pequim sobre a expressão.
Para fãs chineses como Tao Bolin, um influenciador que veio da província de Guangdong, no sul, para o evento, parecia que o mundo finalmente queria ler literatura chinesa. Fãs e autores se misturaram em um novo Museu de Ficção Científica, projetado pelos prestigiados arquitetos Zaha Hadid na forma de uma enorme estrela de aço sobre um lago.
But three months later, much of that goodwill soured when a scandal erupted over allegations that organizers of the Hugo Awards – the biggest science fiction award, given out at Worldcon – disqualified candidates to appease Chinese censors.
The event encapsulated the contradictions that Chinese science fiction has faced for decades. In 40 years, it went from a politically suspect niche to one of China’s most successful cultural exports, with author Liu Cixin winning international followers that include fans like Barack Obama and Mark Zuckerberg. But it had to overcome obstacles created by geopolitics during that same time.
With a big-budget Netflix adaptation of “The Three-Body Problem” set to be released in March, and produced by the same team behind “Game of Thrones,” Chinese science fiction could reach its biggest audience yet.
Getting there took decades of work from dedicated authors, editors, and cultural bureaucrats who believed that science fiction could bring people together. “Science fiction has always been a bridge between different cultures and countries,” says Yao Haijun, editor-in-chief of Science Fiction World, China’s oldest science fiction magazine. “Each author can have their own vision of the future and can coexist and be respected even if in conflict.”
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The journey of Chinese science fiction abroad began with another convention in Chengdu three decades ago, but politics nearly derailed it before it could take off.
Science Fiction World planned to host a writers’ conference in the city, known for its panda sanctuary and countercultural streak, in 1991. But as news of the brutal crackdown on student protesters in Tiananmen Square in Beijing circulated globally in 1989, foreign speakers were dropping out.
The magazine sent a small delegation to the Worldcon 1990, held in The Hague, to salvage the conference.
Their leader was Shen Zaiwang, an English translator from the Sichuan Provincial Foreign Affairs Department who fell in love with science fiction as a child after reading Jules Verne’s books like “Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea.” He packed instant noodles for the weeks-long train journey through China and the fragmented Soviet Union.
In The Hague, Shen and former magazine editor Yang Xiao used toy pandas and postcards from Chengdu to argue that the city – over 1,800 kilometers (1,000 miles) from Beijing – was friendly and safe to visit.
“We tried to present our province as a safe place and for people in Sichuan to really hope that foreign science fiction writers could come and take a look and encourage young Chinese to read more science fiction novels,” Shen said.
In the end, a dozen foreign authors attended the conference. It was a modest start, but more than anyone could have imagined just a few years earlier.
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Chinese science fiction faced decades of suspicion at home.
The genre flourished in China in the first half of the 20th century, fueled by interest in new technologies and stories translated from abroad. But it disappeared during the Cultural Revolution, a tumultuous decade that started in 1966 when Maoist radicals attacked “bourgeois” elements, including scientists and many types of literature.
Science fiction resurfaced as China began opening up to the world after Mao’s era in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Authors like Zheng Wenguang and Ye Yonglie wrote stories about space travel, while China’s nascent space program launched its first satellites into orbit. Regional magazines like Chengdu’s Science Fiction World grew rapidly.
But in the early 1980s, Beijing launched a nationwide campaign of “spiritual pollution cleansing” to crack down on the influence of decadent Western elements, and science fiction was accused of being unscientific and out of step with official ideology. Most young publications were shut down.
In Chengdu, the editors of Science Fiction World persisted.
“They believed that if China wanted to develop, it needed to be an innovative country – it needed science fiction,” said Yao, the editor, in a public speech recorded in 2017.
The magazine aimed to change the public’s negative perceptions of science fiction. In 1997, six years after the Chengdu conference, it hosted another international event in Beijing, headlined by American and Russian astronauts. The conference caught the attention of the Chinese press, giving science fiction a new aura of innovation, exploration, and imagination, Yao said. It also paved the way for international takeoff.
O BIG BANG DE LIU CIXIN
The growing science fiction fandom in China devoured translated works from abroad, but few people overseas read Chinese stories. Liu Cixin would change that.
A soft-spoken engineer at a coal-dominated power plant in Shanxi province, his stories – which blended massive engineering projects capable of moving entire planets with moments of quiet human emotion – were a hit with genre fans.
But “The Three-Body Problem,” serialized by Science Fiction World for the first time in 2006, reached a level of popularity never seen by other Chinese works, says Yao, who edited the novel.
When the book was released, fans in Chengdu surrounded the launch at a local bookstore, said Yang Feng, founder of the local independent publisher Eight Light Minutes Culture. They surrounded the building, holding signs saying “I love you, Liu Cixin!”
Authorities took note. The China Educational Publications Import & Export Corporation, a state-owned publications exporter, acquired the novel and its two sequels.
The plot of the trilogy, ironically, centers on the disastrous consequences of sending a message to a distant alien world. “The Dark Forest,” the second volume, is so named for its view of the universe as a dog-eat-dog struggle for survival, where the best way to survive is to hide.
The translations were conceived from the start as “a major cultural export from China to the world, something highly visible,” says Joel Martinsen, who translated “The Dark Forest.” But no one could have predicted the critical and popular success: in 2015, Liu became the first Asian author to win a Hugo Award for a novel.
“There was something very new, raw, and appealing, and sometimes even very dark and ruthless in his work,” says Song Mingwei, a professor of Chinese literature at Wellesley College. “It made readers think, ‘Wow, this is impressive’.”
Song says Liu hit an ideal point between familiar tropes of Western genre fiction and references to China’s difficult history. The trilogy is now “a classic,” he added.
The following year, Beijing-based writer Hao Jingfang beat out Stephen King to win a Hugo for short fiction with a story she originally published on an Internet university forum, about social inequality in a surreal version of the Chinese capital.
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Liu’s translations were also a political breakthrough for the genre: in two decades, he went from barely tolerated to a flagship export of China’s official cultural machine.
The government encouraged the growth of an industry spanning movies, video games, books, magazines, and exhibitions, and set up an official research center in 2020 to track its rise. A box-office hit set in Liu’s tale’s world, “The Wandering Earth,” broke national box-office records and spawned two sequels; however, it had limited distribution and mixed reviews overseas.
Worldcon Chengdu would be the crowning achievement of these efforts.
When the site was announced, some international fans criticized the choice, citing human rights, censorship, and concerns about the voting process.
The event itself was seen as a success.
But in January, when the Hugo committee released vote totals, the suspicions of critics seemed to be confirmed. Several candidates were disqualified, raising censorship concerns. They included New York Times bestselling authors RF Kuang and Xiran Jay Zhao, both politically active writers with family ties to China.
Leaked internal emails – which the Associated Press could not independently verify – appeared to show that the awarding committee spent weeks vetting the works and social media profiles of nominees for statements that could offend Beijing, and sent reports on it to their Chinese counterparts, according to an investigation by two science fiction authors and journalists. They don’t show how the reports were used or who made decisions about disqualification.
The Hugo Awards organizers did not respond to AP’s requests for comment.
Liu himself is no stranger to controversy. He faced a backlash for endorsing the oppressive Chinese government’s policies towards the Uighur ethnic minority in Xinjiang in a 2019 interview with The New Yorker. Netflix faced calls to cancel the series due to the controversy. Netflix representatives did not respond to questions sent by email by AP.
NOVOS HORIZONTES
Despite frictions, Chinese science fiction remains poised to continue its international rise. The Netflix adaptation of “The Three-Body Problem” could bring it to a vast new audience, an order of magnitude larger than Shen Zaiwang’s trip to The Hague.
And experts like Song and Yao are excited for a new generation of Chinese science fiction authors who are beginning to be translated into English now.
It is led by younger writers who were educated abroad, like Regina Kanyu Wang and Tang Fei. Their works explore themes that resonate with younger audiences, says Song, including gender fluidity and environmental crises.
“When doing anything with the endorsement of the market or the government, imagination can dry up very quickly,” says Song. “I think that often what is important happens on the margins.”
Yao continues to believe in the role of science fiction as a bridge between cultures, even in turbulent times.
“As long as there is communication,” he says, “we will be able to find some common ground.”
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AP researcher Wanqing Chen contributed to this report.