In this essay I discuss the work of Chinese sf author Han Song (1965–), focusing in particular on the novella "Meinü shoulie zhinan" [A Guide to Hunting Beautiful Women, 2014]. This novella is used as a starting point for approaching matters of language and form in contemporary Chinese-language science fiction, and exploring what these elements can tell us about the state of the genre to which they are ascribed. This essay develops on three levels: a self-reflective one, pertaining to my own experience as a translator; a formal one, in which I focus on the narrative configuration of "Meinü shoulie zhinan"; and a discursive one, in which I try to tackle the cultural phenomenon of "Chinese SF" from a wider perspective. These three levels are connected: I submit that my own experience in translating this novella, which was one of discomfort, was rooted in the code informing the text, and that the mobilization of this code therein reflects by way of metonymy the problematic mobilization of science fiction in China and the world today.
No takes yet. Share an insight, caveat, or question.
Lorenzo Andolfatto (2022) studied this question.