Betrayal With Integrity: Conformance and Estrangement in Translating Chinese SF

Description: A one-hour talk in which award-winning author and translator discusses the origin of Chinese science fiction through translation of Western works, and then his own translation of the Hugo-winning novel, The Three-Body Problem, by Liu Cixin and its reception by readers in the West. Ken prepares the audience with some background on translation theory and the modern conception of translation as a performance in cultural negotiation, and applies these academic concepts to genre literature in particular.

He concludes the talk by extending the theoretical framework of “translation” to his debut novel, The Grace of Kings, which melds Western and Chinese epic traditions by transposing a foundational narrative from one culture into another.