Chinese sci-fi author Chen Qiufan will join Bangkok Climate Action Week today.
The event, titled “In Search Of Hope-Full Futures”, is set to take place at SEA Junction, the Bangkok Art and Culture Centre, from 2pm-6pm today. Supported by the London Climate Action Week, Bangkok Climate Action Week today is a collaboration between the city and civil society, which has organised over 232 activities across the capital.
Chen Qiufan (aka Stanley Chan) is a fiction writer, screenwriter and columnist who has published work through various outlets such as Science Fiction World, Esquire, Chutzpah! and ZUI Found. His short stories include The Fish Of Lijiang, The Year Of The Rat and The Flower Of Shazui, all of which are available in Invisible Planets: Contemporary Chinese Science Fiction In Translation, a collection of 13 shorties edited and translated by Ken Liu. In their new book AI 2041: Ten Visions For Our Future (2021), Chen and Kai-Fu Lee predict how artificial intelligence will change the world within two decades.
Chen has won several literary accolades, including Taiwan’s Dragon Fantasy Award and China’s Galaxy and Nebula Awards. In English, he has been featured in Clarkesworld, Lightspeed, Interzone and The Magazine Of Fantasy and Science Fiction. Liu Cixin, China’s most acclaimed science fiction author, praised his debut novel, The Waste Tide (2013) as “the pinnacle of near-future SF writing”.
Chen and other speakers will join a two-part programme to envision alternative futures of Asia amid the techno-apocalyptic climate crisis. A panel, titled “Fiction, Imagination and Climate Agency”, will explore the potential of speculative storytelling in creating new perspectives. Meanwhile, a game-based workshop titled “Climate Dreams and Dynamic Disruptions” will delve into alternative scenarios for Asia’s islands and oceans.