Lu Ban in Edinburgh: Chinese science fiction writer explores technology and humanity

At a recent literary event at the University of Edinburgh's Confucius Institute for Scotland, Lu Ban discussed imagination, mortality and humanity's future with writers, scholars, publishers and literature enthusiasts.

Titled "Imagining Futures Together: Chinese–Scottish Science Fiction in Conversation", the event was jointly organized by China National Publications Import and Export (Group) Co Ltd, Jingshi Academy at Beijing Normal University, the Confucius Institute for Scotland, and the Chinese Literature Readers' Club in the United Kingdom, with support from the International Department of the China Writers Association.

Chen Li, the institute's Chinese director, opened the event, and Esther Tyldesley, a teaching fellow at the University of Edinburgh working in Chinese and translation studies, moderated the conversation.

Lu is part of a new generation of Chinese science fiction writers. His story The White Cliff was shortlisted for Best Short Story at the 81st Hugo Awards, and Upstart won best novella at the 33rd Galaxy Awards, a Chinese science fiction prize.

At the event, Lu said science fiction's lasting value lies in what it reveals about people and the effects of technology on their lives. He described his entry into the genre as accidental, saying he decided to write a story of his own after finding the ending of Luc Besson's film Lucy unsatisfying. He also traced his interest in writing to childhood, when he copied Chinese characters from a Xinhua Dictionary at age 3 and later served as student representative for Chinese language classes from primary school through high school. Although he studied journalism at university, he realized what he most wanted to write were stories born of his imagination.

Lu said The White Cliff was inspired by a photograph of the White Cliffs of Dover. In Chinese cultural imagery, cliffs often suggest death, isolation or an impassable barrier, but the purity and beauty of the white cliffs in sunlight struck him differently. The story follows a terminally ill patient whose consciousness is separated from the body through medical technology and who spends the rest of life in a cabin beside a white cliff. Lu attributed its Hugo nomination and resonance with international readers to a question shared across cultures: how to face death.

Upstart introduces the concept of a legally defined death and asks whether people would exchange years of their lives for money. Lu said that when he posed the question to an audience at a book fair in Italy, those who raised their hands and those who did not were roughly equal, showing how literature can prompt people from different backgrounds to engage with the same dilemma.