Les romans de science-fiction de Liu Cixin

Abstract

This paper introduces the science fiction novels and stories of Liu Cixin, a Chinese writer who has played a major role in reviving the genre in twenty-first-century China. The paper discusses Liu’s work in the context of the genre’s history in China. Liu and other writers belonging to the same generation have created a new wave when the genre has gained unprecedented popularity in China during the recent years. The main part of the paper analyzes the style of this new wave, with Liu Cixin as its finest representative author. The paper also presents an analysis of several major works by Liu, and theorizes the aesthetics and politics of the new wave as Liu’s stories and novels represent. The Three-Body Problem, Liu’s most famous novel, is discussed with special attention paid to its sublime depiction of the universe. The paper explores the poetics of the new wave, concluding that it continues the avant-garde cultural spirit that emerged in the 1980s. Liu Cixin’s unpublished 1989 novel China 2185 is recognized as the origin of the new wave, and the analysis of this novel shows the important characteristics of the new wave that later becomes the foundation for such a popular novel as The Three-Body Problem.