China only an ambitious space program does not hold; in recent years, Science Fiction will be promoted literature by the state. Cixin Waldorf Liu is the most important representative of the genre. In 2007, a success for the former power plant engineer the first volume of his trilogy “The three suns”. In it, mankind is due to the contact with an alien must make a life-form, the Trisolariern, major societal challenges. 2014 the English Translation appeared, and with readers such as Mark Zuckerberg or Barack Obama a prominent audience.
Mr Liu, how to write a novel that takes place in the future, to be without credibility? My criterion: that the novel is to act historically.
Begins your trilogy, therefore, during the cultural revolution?
That has to do with the habit of Reading Chinese sci-Fi lovers. The Chinese want to, that it begins realistically and then step by step in the future. In the Chinese cultural revolution, many people were tortured. It was a very stressful period in our history. Only against this Background one can understand why the protagonist reveals the humanity to the alien.
In the third part of the series go back even further in the past, until the fall of Constantinople in 1453. You have to think of the past, when writing on the future?
What is Science Fiction? The Hidden, beyond time, beyond space. What is beyond the scope of our reality. I am trying to get this freedom, so far as possible, to exploit both spatial and temporal.
Where is Science-Fiction today – is there a crisis of the genre?
Yes, there is. I read every year, the books that are nominated for the big prizes of the genre. The stories are always very similar, and I think it is due to the fact that technology has become so much a part of our everyday life. The fascination is lost. In comparison to the second half of the 20th century. Century Science Fiction, such as paralyzed. There is a lack of Innovation and creativity.
we Want to imagine the future currently prefer not to ?
Certainly. Take the US: In the wedding of Science Fiction, large-delivered-like visions. The books today are focused on social problems such as sexism, racism, or climate change.
In the West, many look with concern to China when they hear that social projects such as “Citizen Score” should be started, the rating of all citizens according to a points system.
This social credit system is not the greatest danger. Although one of the side effects will be that the state can monitor citizens even better and you always have to give more of his clients ‘ privacy. It is good that Western intellectuals about something like that, but it is going in the wrong direction.
what do you mean?
I’m just very concerned, because every Chinese has access to the Internet. The Internet works as a catalyst for irrational opinions. This poses a great potential for Violence, and can become uncontrollable. In China, there is the ever – in the cultural revolution. I live and work in China, under normal circumstances, therefore, I know the mass very well, better than many intellectuals. To me the big Worry.
But the Internet needs to be regulated, therefore, the same?
progress is good. We do not encourage it we will not survive. If the technique fails, when power and water fail, how long a large city like Berlin can survive? Our only option is to live with the side effects, the new technologies bring with them – and to reduce the hazards, well, it goes.
what are you working On now?
I write every day, but it will take until there is something New from me. As the third volume appeared in my trilogy, I had already worked three years on a new novel. One Night, I woke up and had suddenly lost the reference to this story. I was insecure and unhappy and wanted to stop publication rather. Three years of work, unfortunately, were in vain.
you have many celebrities Fans. How is this if your novel from the US President in the New York Times is recommended?
to Me it is unclear how President Barack Obama first came on my book. In the White house, they wanted to have even a preliminary version of the third volume. Of course I am glad of it. I suspect the book has referred to Obama as, because of, the problems of mankind, not to a single Nation. When I heard that he reads my book, my first thought was that he might be a bit of a Budget for the search for extraterrestrial schedule.
(editing Tamedia)
Created: 30.01.2019, 18:27 PM