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

Lu also offered a flexible view of genre, saying writers and readers need not worry about what counts as science fiction but should care about what makes a good story. He said science fiction's central task is to examine technology's impact on human beings rather than simply depict the distant future, and that questions about humanity raised by stories should endure even as technology changes.

Asked whether science fiction should offer hope or warning, Lu cited the image of a severed arm in British fiction during the Industrial Revolution as an example of literature registering the harm machinery can inflict. He said artificial intelligence would bring new forms of such harm but remained optimistic, pointing to quartz and mechanical watches as an example of how human labor retains value despite technological change.

"Human labor has value in itself. Technology will not replace that," he said.
Lu also reflected on the local character of literature after hearing two women poets read the same poem alternately in English and Gaelic at the Edinburgh International Book Festival. Although he could not understand Gaelic, he felt he was listening to a conversation between two souls who both belonged to Scotland. He noted that wind appears frequently in Scottish writers' work but rarely in his own fiction, while a Chinese story might feature baijiu, saying such details can shape how readers understand a story. 

Using The Wandering Earth as an example, Lu said Chinese science fiction can offer another way to imagine a response to a shared crisis. In Hollywood disaster stories, people often build spacecraft to leave a threatened Earth, while in the Chinese story they take the planet with them, a choice he linked to the importance of home and country in Chinese culture and to seeing Earth itself as home. He added that science fiction is inherently global, as a falling meteorite does not concern only one country.

Toward the end of the conversation, Lu invoked the Axial Age, saying Confucius, Laozi, Socrates and Plato considered fundamental questions about human beings across geography and time. Writers today approach those questions through their own cultural perspectives, he said, and Chinese and Scottish writers may offer different answers yet share recognizable human feelings.

The event was part of the overseas program of the 2026 Jingshi World Literature Festival and the China Writers Association's 2026 international communication program for the Chinese Literature Readers' Club. Developed by Beijing Normal University around the Beijing International Book Fair, with support from the China Writers Association and academic guidance from the Beijing Federation of Literary and Art Circles, the Jingshi World Literature Festival is an international platform for literary exchange.

Writer profile: Lu Ban is a Chinese science fiction writer. 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.