Globalization, Science Fiction and the China Story: Translation, Dissemination and Reception of Liu Cixin’s Works across the Globe

ABSTRACT

Science Fiction (SF) as a literary genre is intrinsically world-oriented and closely linked to the notion of “global village” with visions of the future. If the starting stage of Chinese SF has benefited from the global exchange for the introduction of new ideas and science to modern China, the contemporary development contributes to the globalizing process by making the China story an indispensable part of world literature. As the Hugo Award laureate Liu Cixin has gained considerable popularity internationally, this paper analyses the translation, dissemination and reception of Liu’s SF across the globe, and argues that the collective efforts made by the translator and mediator as well as the techno-optimist digital context push the Chinese SF to become increasingly a global proposition. Thus, Chinese SF’s active integration into the world literature system is both an important facet of East–West cultural exchanges and an imperative representation of the era of globalization.

KEYWORDS:

• Globalization
• science fiction
• China story
• translation
• Liu Cixin
• digital age

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 It is estimated that only 3% of the books sold in the US are works in translation, and the underestimation of literary translations in American book market has been accordingly identified as the well-known “Three Percent Problem”. For more details, see Post 2011.

2 For instance, see Qin 2014; Heller 2014; “Fiction Book Review” 2014.

3 See The Three Body Problem by Cixin Liu–Review, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yvYU4F-D0dc&list=PLfauDMOPhqpHs8g7nuWDlZvhrQGpZIR57&index=3&t=0s, accessed 12 January 2020.

4 Data retrieved from https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7605074/, accessed 12 January 2020.

Additional information

Funding

This paper is sponsored by the following grants: Major Program of the National Social Science Fund of China [grant number 16ZDA194]; The National Social Science Fund of China [grant number 18BWW018].