A few days ago, a domestic website "'Rebirth of The Nature of Zhu Yuanzhang' was nominated for the Hugo Award" news attracted the attention of many domestic science fiction, fantasy, fantasy literature fans, reported that this historical cross-genre fantasy work actually called "She Who Became the Sun" won the 2022 Hugo Award For Best Novel Category nomination, and said that "this novel is based on Zhu Yuanzhang, It tells the story of a sister of Zhu Yuanzhang who overthrew the rule of the Mongol Empire and unified the country and mountains in place of the dead Zhu Yuanzhang."
The wording of the network's report seems to imply that the author and his work are a Chinese. But actually the author Shirley. Parker. Shelley Parker-Chan is a young writer who has never been willing to clarify his ethnicity and even gender attributes, originally living in Malaysia and New Zealand, and now settling in Australia, "She Becomes the Sun" is his debut work, and after its publication, he received a high score of 3.5 stars (out of 4 stars) from the famous book critic Eliot Schrefer in USA Today, so he was valued, and he was rare in Western epic fantasy works, which was very different from the traditional Greek. The framework of the "worldview" of Roman or Norse mythology has been refreshing to European and American book critics, coupled with the introduction of the concept of "Asian-style power plot", which is very fresh in Europe and the United States, and the concept of "gender orientation and identity", which is very "fashionable" in the contemporary West, so it has won a lot of praise, the highest praise of which is "locusmag" In the July 2021 issue of the famous book critics Liz Bourke and Alex Brown, the "narrative grandeur" The depiction of the plot makes the bridge section in "ADesolation Called Peace" (the masterpiece of the famous American occultist MattE Arkady Martine, who was also shortlisted for the same award this year) like a child's play."
But there are also many "bad reviews" of this work. For example, some book critics criticized the book as "pretentious", "pretentious, with a grand framework and pale content", believing that the author was "immature in writing and not enough to control the huge structure", and some people thought that the work was "cold and ruthless, lacking the humanistic care that literary creators should have". Some Chinese commentators have implicitly criticized the author for "having the suspicion of piling up fashion and foreign cultural elements of kitsch", and more Chinese readers said, "This is the 'Ming Wear Text' on the rotten street on the popular Shuangwen serials in mainland China and Hong Kong, and it is far from the best type written", "Such a Shuangwen can be shortlisted only because she is written in English".
But "She Became the Sun" was indeed nominated for the 2022 Hugo Award for Best Novel (the official name for best feature) (english 40,000 words or more), a nomination from the 2020 and 2021 World Science Fiction Conventions) of a total of 1368 valid nomination ballots (Worldcon) from the top six, in the circle has a certain degree of representation. "She Became a Star" ranked sixth out of all six finalists, and the first place was "The Desolation Called Peace", which was used as an analogy by book critics. The other five works are Becky Chambers, "The Galaxy, and the Ground Within," Ryka Aoki, "Light From Uncommon Stars," and P. Clark. Djèlí Clark's "A Master of Djinn" and Andy Weir's "Project Hail Mary" are still to be spent, but it is at least not very appropriate to over-exaggerate the "Chinese elements" in "She Becomes the Sun".
In fact, since its inception in 1953, the Hugo Awards have not lacked "Chinese elements".
In 1984, William F. Wu, a Chinese-American writer (born in Missouri, USA), was nominated for the Hugo Award, the Nebula Award and the World Fantasy Award for three major fantasy literature short story awards that year for his short story "Wong's Lost and Found Emporium", and two years later his short story "Hong's Bluff" was nominated for the Hugo Award and the Nebula Award for two major short stories in the same year. None of the five nominations were awarded; in 1991, Ted Chiang, a Chinese-American writer born in New York, was nominated for a Hugo Short Story Award for "Tower of Babylon," in 2002 for "Hell Is the Absence of God," and since then he has been nominated for a Hugo Short Story Award in 2007 (The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate). And the Alchemist's), 2009 (Exhalation) and 2010 (The Lifecycle of Software Objects) have won the same award three times, plus four Nebula Awards and three Locus Awards, and are one of the influential short and medium-sized occult writers of our time.
In 2012, Liu Yukun, a Chinese-American writer born in Lanzhou, China, won both the Nebula Award and the Hugo Award for Short Story for "The Paper Menagerie," becoming the only Chinese to win both awards in the same year; in September 2013, he won the Hugo Award for Best Short Story for Mono no Aware.
In 2015, Chinese writer Liu Cixin won the Hugo Award for Best Novel for The Three-Body Problem, and in 2016, Chinese writer Hao Jingfang won the "Best Short Story Award" for Folding Beijing. They are also the only two true Chinese players to win the Hugo Award so far. In addition, in 2017, Liu Cixin's "Three-Body 3" was nominated for the Best Novel Award but failed, which is also the last time that a Chinese author has been nominated for a Hugo Award so far.
Obviously, compared with the base of Chinese and the number of authors and works, the two awards and several nominations are quite disproportionate, and critics' explanations are similar, including "this is an English award, the translation of Chinese works is not effective", "the tastes of the East and the West are different", "The Chinese market is too small, the number of creators is insufficient", etc.
It cannot be said that these statements do not have a certain truth, such as the Hugo Awards since 2010, there has been too much preference for female writers, non-white writers, one-sided emphasis on trends such as "progressive attributes", and around 2015, which has triggered a farce of white male Worldcon owners collectively "brushing the list", but it is also not advisable to one-sidedly emphasize these objective factors and ignore the problems of science fiction, fantasy and fantasy works themselves Chinese.
From the perspective of translation, Chinese science fiction and fantasy works at least at the hugo award level do not suffer losses: he is an outstanding Chinese science fiction writer and the chinese writer who has won the hugo award the most, Liu Yukun, who is proficient in Chinese, English and scientific and technological terms, is enthusiastic about Sino-foreign science fiction, fantasy and fantasy cultural exchanges, and has represented the English translation and promotion of a large number of "top- and"top" Chinese writers, and the awards of the "Three-Body" series and "Beijing Folding", he is listed in the list of winners as a translator, and his hard work and diligence are well-known, so why is it that "The Three-Body Problem" series and "Beijing Folding" won the award, he is listed in the list of winners as a translator, and his work is hard and diligent. "Three-Body 3" was nominated and lost, and the works of other writers were not even nominated? Is it possible to blame "poor translation"? Can we still find a more professional and enthusiastic "Hugo Award stepping stone" than Liu Yukun? When "Three-Body 3" was not selected, some foreign book critics regretted that the author "Da Liu" outlined a macho world that "runs counter to the times". Some insiders in China pointed out that some authors have been bound to the "wings of fantasy" for various reasons, while other authors are intoxicated with "liking and circulating money", spending a lot of energy on irrigation, endorsement, wholesale a large number of works that cannot withstand scrutiny and precipitation, and even use "extraordinary means" to catch up with the progress.
I hope that Chinese elements will glow as soon as possible on international platforms such as the Hugo Awards.