The Asian (American) Century? Translating Between Chinese and Chinese American Science Fiction

Abstract: Few literary genres are as well positioned to comment on the technoeconomic prognosis of the “Asian Century” as science fiction. This is particularly true when Chinese science fiction is having a global moment. However, Chinese American sci-fi occupies an aporetic space, exhibiting much lower global popularity and prestige. This article reads Ted Chiang’s short story “The Story of Your Life” and Ling Ma’s 2018 novel Severance to question how Chinese American sci-fi belies the promise of a totalizing Asian Century, particularly in the untranslatability of racial formations amid increasing flows of culture and capital. I argue that the asymmetric prestige of Asian American sci-fi is a structural consequence of seeing Asia as the future, a mode of thinking that renders invisible trajectories of diasporic return.