ICS Translations

According to an online conspiracy theory, the American author Dean Koontz predicted the coronavirus outbreak in 1981. His novel ‘The Eyes of Darkness’ referred to a deadly virus called "Wuhan-400" - strangely predicting the Chinese city where the Covid-19 would emerge. But the similarities end there: Wuhan-400 is described as having a "death rate" of 100%, developed in laboratories outside the city as the "perfect" biological weapon. Science fiction writers, however, have made a point of doing just that. With the devastating effect of the epidemic and a worldwide rise in state-sanctioned authoritarianism, science fiction has been approaching reality at an alarming rate in recent years. But how do Chinese science fiction writers, who have spent much of their lives writing imagining dystopia, react to ultimately live in one? How does reality match fiction? This translation is based on questions asked to the "three kings" of Chinese science fiction, Wang Jiankang, Han Song and Liu Cixin, who are the best practitioners of the genre, to tell us about their experience of the epidemic in China