Ted Chiang
Ted Chiang | |
---|---|
Chiang in Madrid, Spain, 2011 | |
Born |
1967 (age 50–51) Port Jefferson, New York |
Occupation | Fiction writer, technical writer |
Nationality | American |
Education | Brown University (BS) |
Period | 1990–present |
Genre | Science fiction, fantasy |
Notable works |
Tower of Babylon (1990) "Story of Your Life" (1998) Stories of Your Life and Others (2002) |
Ted Chiang (born 1967) is an American science fiction writer. His Chinese name is Chiang Feng-nan (姜峯楠).
His work has won four Nebula awards, four Hugo awards, the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer, and four Locus awards.[1] His short story "Story of Your Life" was the basis of the film Arrival (2016).
Early life and career
Chiang was born in Port Jefferson, New York.[2] Both of his parents were born in China, but immigrated to Taiwan with their families during the Communist Revolution before immigrating to the United States.[3] He graduated from Brown University with a computer science degree and in 1989 graduated from the Clarion Writers Workshop. As of July 2002, he was working as a technical writer in the software industry and resided in Bellevue, Washington, near Seattle.[4]
Critic John Clute has written that Chiang's writing has a "tight-hewn and lucid style... [which] has a magnetic effect on the reader."[5]
Awards
Chiang has published fifteen short stories, novelettes, and novellas as of 2015, and has won numerous science fiction awards for his works: a Nebula Award for "Tower of Babylon" (1990); the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer in 1992; a Nebula Award and the Theodore Sturgeon Award for "Story of Your Life" (1998); a Sidewise Award for "Seventy-Two Letters" (2000); a Nebula Award, Locus Award, and Hugo Award for his novelette "Hell Is the Absence of God" (2002); a Nebula and Hugo Award for his novelette "The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate" (2007); a British Science Fiction Association Award, a Locus Award, and the Hugo Award for Best Short Story for "Exhalation" (2009); and a Hugo Award[6] and Locus Award for his novella "The Lifecycle of Software Objects" (2010).
Chiang turned down a Hugo nomination for his short story "Liking What You See: A Documentary" in 2003, on the grounds that the story was rushed due to editorial pressure and did not turn out as he had really wanted.[7]
In 2013, his collection of translated stories Die Hölle ist die Abwesenheit Gottes won the German Kurd-Laßwitz-Preis for best foreign science fiction.
Year | Organization | Award title, Category |
Work | Result | Refs |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
1991 | Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America | Nebula Award for Best Novelette | "Tower of Babylon" | Won | |
World Science Fiction Society | Hugo Award for Best Novelette | Nominated | |||
1992 | World Science Fiction Society | Hugo Award for Best Novelette | "Understand" | Nominated | |
1999 | James Tiptree, Jr. Literary Award Council | James Tiptree Jr. Award | "Story of Your Life" | Nominated | |
World Science Fiction Society | Hugo Award for Best Novella | Nominated | |||
2000 | Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America | Nebula Award for Best Novella | Won | ||
2001 | World Fantasy Convention | World Fantasy Award for Best Novella | "Seventy-Two Letters" | Nominated | |
World Science Fiction Society | Hugo Award for Best Novella | Nominated | |||
2002 | World Science Fiction Society | Hugo Award for Best Novelette | "Hell Is the Absence of God" | Won | |
2003 | Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America | Nebula Award for Best Novelette | Won | ||
James Tiptree, Jr. Literary Award Council | James Tiptree Jr. Award | "Liking What You See: A Documentary" | Nominated | ||
2008 | British Science Fiction Association | BSFA Award, Best Short Fiction |
"The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate" | Nominated | |
Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America | Nebula Award for Best Novelette | Won | |||
World Science Fiction Society | Hugo Award for Best Novelette | Won | |||
2009 | British Science Fiction Association | BSFA Award, Best Short Fiction |
"Exhalation" | Won | |
World Science Fiction Society | Hugo Award for Best Short Story | Won | |||
2011 | Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America | Nebula Award for Best Novella | "The Lifecycle of Software Objects" | Nominated | |
World Science Fiction Society | Hugo Award for Best Novella | Won | |||
2014 | World Science Fiction Society | Hugo Award for Best Novelette | "The Truth of Fact, the Truth of Feeling" | Nominated |
Republication
His novelette "The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate" (2007) was also published in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction.
"The Great Silence" was included in The Best American Short Stories anthology for 2016, which is a rare honor for stories and authors that fall under the science fiction, fantasy, and horror genres.
Works
- "Tower of Babylon", Omni, 1990 (Nebula Award winner)
- "Division by Zero", Full Spectrum 3, 1991 (available online)
- "Understand", Asimov's Science Fiction, 1991 (available online)
- "Story of Your Life", Starlight 2, 1998 (Nebula Award, Theodore Sturgeon Award and Seiun Award winner)
- "The Evolution of Human Science" (also known as "Catching Crumbs from the Table"), Nature, 2000 (available online)
- "Seventy-Two Letters", Vanishing Acts, 2000 (Sidewise Award winner; available online)
- "Hell Is the Absence of God", Starlight 3, 2001 (Hugo Award, Locus Award, Nebula Award and Seiun Award winner)
- "Liking What You See: A Documentary", Stories of Your Life and Others, 2002
- "What's Expected of Us", Nature, 2005 (available online)
- "The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate", Subterranean Press, 2007 and F&SF, September 2007 (Nebula Award, Hugo Award and Seiun Award winner; available online)
- "Exhalation", Eclipse 2, 2008 (BSFA, Locus Award, and Hugo Award winner; available online)
- "The Lifecycle of Software Objects", Subterranean Press, July 2010 (Locus Award, Hugo Award and Seiun Award winner; available online)
- "Dacey's Patent Automatic Nanny", The Thackery T. Lambshead Cabinet of Curiosities (edited by Jeff VanderMeer and Ann VanderMeer) June 2011
- "The Truth of Fact, the Truth of Feeling", Subterranean Press Magazine, August 2013 (available online)
- "The Great Silence", e-flux Journal, May 2015 (included in The Best American Short Stories, 2016; available online)
- "Omphalos", Exhalation: Stories, 2019
- "Anxiety Is the Dizziness of Freedom", Exhalation: Stories, 2019
Collections
- Stories of Your Life and Others (Tor, 2002; Locus Award for Best Collection), republished as Arrival (Picador, 2016)
- Exhalation: Stories (Knopf, May 2019)[8]
Film
A film adaptation by Eric Heisserer of "Story of Your Life", titled Arrival and directed by Denis Villeneuve, was released in 2016 to a critical and commercial success. It stars Amy Adams and Jeremy Renner.[9][10]
Teaching
Chiang was an instructor at the Clarion Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers' Workshop at UC San Diego in 2012 and 2016.[11]
References
- ↑ Chiang's awards, Internet Speculative Fiction Database
- ↑ "Ted Chiang". Internet Speculative Fiction Database (Summary Bibliography). Retrieved October 4, 2012.
- ↑ Rothman, Joshua (January 5, 2017). "Ted Chiang's Soulful Science Fiction". The New Yorker. Retrieved January 7, 2017.
- ↑ "An Interview with Ted Chiang". SF Site. July 2002. Retrieved October 4, 2012.
- ↑ Chiang, SF Encyclopedia.
- ↑ "2011 Hugo and Campbell Awards Winners". Locus. Retrieved August 21, 2011.
- ↑ "Chiang". fantasticmetropolis.com. Archived from the original on 2008-04-02.
- ↑ "Exhalation by Ted Chiang". Penguin Random House.
- ↑ "Jeremy Renner Joins Amy Adams in Sci-Fi 'Story of Your Life'". The Hollywood Reporter. 6 March 2015.
- ↑ Zutter, Natalie (August 8, 2016). "Your First Look at Arrival, the Adaptation of Ted Chiang's Novella Story of Your Life". TOR. tor.com. Retrieved 17 August 2016.
- ↑ "Clarion at UC San Diego Graduates and Instructors". Clarion. Retrieved December 9, 2016.
External links
Wikiquote has quotations related to: Ted Chiang |
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Ted Chiang. |
- Stories of Ted Chiang’s Life and Others Ted Chiang Interview
- Ted Chiang on the Future Video of a speech by Ted Chiang
- Interview conducted by Al Robertson
- Interview conducted by Lou Anders
- Interview conducted by Gavin J. Grant
- Ted Chiang at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database
- Ted Chiang's online fiction at Free Speculative Fiction Online
- Ted Chiang on IMDb
- Ted Chiang at Library of Congress Authorities, with 3 catalog records