{"id":23981,"date":"2017-10-11T08:25:55","date_gmt":"2017-10-11T12:25:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/?p=23981"},"modified":"2017-10-11T08:25:55","modified_gmt":"2017-10-11T12:25:55","slug":"eavesdrop-on-breakfast-with-the-award-winning-chen-quifan-in-episode-49-of-eating-the-fantastic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/2017\/10\/11\/eavesdrop-on-breakfast-with-the-award-winning-chen-quifan-in-episode-49-of-eating-the-fantastic\/","title":{"rendered":"Eavesdrop on breakfast with the award-winning Chen Quifan in Episode 49 of Eating the Fantastic"},"content":{"rendered":"

Early one morning during the recent World Science Fiction Convention in Helsinki, I met Chinese writer Chen Quifan for breakfast at Caf\u00e9 Engel<\/a>, a restaurant located in a 1765 building which was originally a pipe factory. We ate by a window which looked out on Helsinki Cathedral, built from 1830-1852 as a tribute to Tsar Nicholas I of Russia. <\/p>\n

Chen Qiufan has published more thirty stories in venues such as Science Fiction World<\/em>, Esquire<\/em>, Clarkesworld<\/em>, Lightspeed<\/em>, Interzone<\/em>, and F&SF<\/em>. His 2013 debut novel, The Waste Tide<\/em>, was praised by Liu Cixin as \u201cthe pinnacle of near-future SF writing.\u201d He’s the most widely translated young writer of science fiction in China. He has won Taiwan\u2019s Dragon Fantasy Award, China\u2019s Galaxy and Nebula Awards, and a Science Fiction & Fantasy Translation Award with Ken Liu. <\/p>\n

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We discussed why his favorite character from all of science fiction is Mr. Spock, what kept him going during the seven years between the sales of his first and second stories, the reasons H. G. Wells is a genius, why he believes science fiction is the greatest realism, the differences in reading protocols between Chinese and non-Chinese readers, why he hopes his own upcoming science fiction movie will defy his prediction there’ll be many bad SF movies to come in Chinese cinema, and more.<\/p>\n

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Here\u2019s how you can join us in Helsinki—<\/p>\n

1) Subscribe over at the iTunes store<\/a>, where all 48 previous episodes are still available, and still for free.<\/p>\n

2) Download the episode to any device of your choosing by using the show’s RSS feed of http:\/\/eatingthefantastic.libsyn.com\/rss<\/a>.<\/p>\n

3) Or simply listen right here via the below embed.<\/p>\n