As the novel’s translator Ken Liu has argued, “if you try to apply that model a little bit deeper, you’ll realize that nothing works under that model, nothing matches” (, 01:02:35). However, while the novel at first sight seems to invite such a direct, allegorical reading, mapping the novel onto the contemporary political landscape becomes a much messier job on further analysis. The novel’s references to the Cold War and the “iron curtain of space” (57) speak to the present tensions in Sino-western relations (although the novel was first published in Chinese in 2016, several years after it was penned). Hao Jingfang’s Vagabonds is set in 2201, and is centered on the antagonistic relationship between Earth and its former colony, the now independent Mars. Ivan Stacy reflects on the antagonism between individualist and collectivist systems in Hao Jingfang’s Vagabonds.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |