Found in Translation: "New People" in Twentieth-Century Chinese Science Fiction by Jing Jiang

Abstract

Reviewed by: Found in Translation: "New People" in Twentieth-Century Chinese Science Fictionby Jing Jiang Hua Li Translingual and Transcultural Ties between Western and Chinese SF. Jing Jiang. Found in Translation: "New People" in Twentieth-Century Chinese Science Fiction. Association for Asian Studies, 2021. 144 pp. $16 pbk. Jing Jiang's Found in Translationis a concise but comprehensive exploration of the translingual and transcultural ties between Western and Chinese sf from the late nineteenth century through the end of the twentieth century. The book focuses on the motif of the so-called "new people" with whom Chinese sf writers were often preoccupied over the past century. Through close readings of both original Western works and their Chinese counterparts focused on the idea of creating new people, the author reveals [End Page 175]how this motif has undergone various metamorphoses throughout the history of Chinese sf. This book is a fine complement to existing scholarship. Recent years have witnessed the publication of several English-language scholarly monographs on Chinese sf, such as Nathaniel Isaacson's Celestial Empire: The Emergence of Chinese Science Fiction(2017), Lorenzo Andolfatto's Hundred Days' Literature: Chinese Utopian Fiction at the End of Empire, 1902–1910(2019), Hua Li's Chinese Science Fiction during the Post-Mao Cultural Thaw(2021), and Will Peyton's Chinese and Western Literary Influence in Liu Cixin's Three Body Trilogy(2021). These monographs are either author-based studies or focus on one specific historical period. Jiang's book employs the idea of "new people" as a thread to draw different historical periods together and reveal how Chinese sf has assimilated various features of Western sf while still evolving into a relatively indigenous literary genre in China. By means of the overarching concept of "new people," the book embarks upon in-depth exploration of some important issues such as realism and posthumanism in Chinese science fiction. It situates Chinese sf "within a dynamic model of world literature," exploring the interwoven connections between Chinese sf, translation, and the nation-state (2). It traces how various Western sf works have crossed linguistic and national barriers to reach China, and how various generations of Chinese sf writers have assimilated, transformed, and expanded various Western sf motifs in their own works. Found in Translationdemonstrates the important role that sf has played during the past century in building a modern China. It shows how the elitist aspects of Chinese sf were emphasized at the expense of the genre's connections to popular culture. The book is chronologically structured and topically organized. It contains an introduction, four chapters, and an epilogue. Chapter One, "Medicine for the Mind, Panacea for the Nation," situates the emergence of Chinese sf within the context of intellectual discourse about China's modernization from the mid-nineteenth century to the beginning of the twentieth century. This chapter illustrates how prominent Chinese intellectuals such as Liang Qichao and Lu Xun stressed the instrumental potential of science fiction in disseminating knowledge about modern science and democracy in China, thereby promoting sf as a subgenre of modern-day fiction. Following earlier research by Patrick Hanan, this chapter also examines the pioneering work done by the Anglican missionary John Fryer (1839-1928) in the late Qing period. Fryer not only promoted modern science and underscored the importance of modern fiction, but he also viewed the synergy of modern fiction and science as a panacea for rooting out late imperial China's "three evils"—opium addiction, formulaic civil service exam essays, and foot-binding. Fryer's writings exerted much influence over prominent Chinese intellectuals such as Yan Fu, Liang Qichao, and Lu Xun, who embraced Western science "as a new, enlightened way of understanding the world characteristic of the modern age" (17). Chapter Two, "Scientifically Formed or Reformed," focuses on early Chinese sf writers' fascination with creating artificial humans in a laboratory; [End Page 176]this literary theme "gave rise to a literary vision" of "the malleability or programmability of the soul" (40). This chapter traces the transnational journey of the American novelist Louise J. Strong's sf story, "An Unscientific Story" (1903), through multilingual translations. The original story's skeptical and critical views about creating...