Chen Qiufan

Chen Qiufan (also known as Stanley Chan) is one of the leading figures of contemporary Chinese science fiction — a writer whose fiction merges the textures of China's rapid industrialisation with the imaginative ambition of the best speculative tradition. His debut novel Waste Tide (2013), set on an island in southern China that processes the world's discarded electronics, is a work of both social documentary and vivid SF imagination, exploring class, environmental destruction, and the human cost of the digital economy.

His short fiction, collected in Invisible Planets and other anthologies, has been translated by Ken Liu and others, and he has been a major presence at both Chinese and international SF conventions. With his debut novel, he announced that Chinese SF was ready to take its place in the global conversation — and subsequent years have only confirmed that judgment.