Ted Chiang
Birth date1967 (age 59–60)
Birth placePort Jefferson, New York, U.S.
OccupationFiction writer · technical writer
Period1990–present
GenreScience fiction, fantasy
Notableworks‟Tower of Babylon” (1990)
‟Story of Your Life” (1998)
‟Hell is the Absence of God” (2001)
Stories of Your Life and Others (2002)
‟The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate” (2007)
Exhalation: Stories (2019)
Native name姜峯楠
AwardsSee list
Alma materBrown University (BS)
Ted Chiang
T姜峯楠
S姜峰楠
PJiāng Fēngnán
Bpmfㄐㄧㄤㄈㄥㄋㄢˊ
WChiang1 Feng1-nan2
Mi/jiang1-feng1nan2/

Ted Chiang (; pinyin: Jiāng Fēngnán; born 1967) is an American science fiction writer, whose work has won four Nebula awards, four Hugo awards, the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer, and six Locus awards.[1] He has published the short story collections Stories of Your Life and Others (2002) and Exhalation: Stories (2019). His short story "Story of Your Life" was the basis of the film Arrival (2016). He was an artist in residence at the University of Notre Dame from 2020 to 2021.[2] Chiang is also a frequent non-fiction contributor to the New Yorker, where he writes on topics related to computing such as artificial intelligence.

Early life and education

Chiang was born in 1967 to a Taiwanese American family in Port Jefferson, New York.[3] His Chinese name is Chiang Feng-nan ().[4] Both of his parents are Taiwanese waishengren who were born in mainland China, migrated to Taiwan with their families during the Great Retreat, then immigrated to the United States.[5] His father, Fu-pen Chiang, is a distinguished professor of mechanical engineering at Stony Brook University.[6] His mother (d. 2019) was a librarian.[7] Chiang also has a sister who is a physician.[7]

Chiang grew up on Long Island and, at age 15, began submitting science fiction stories to magazines.[8] He later recalled, "When I was a kid, my intention was to become a physicist. That was a perfectly respectable career choice for the son of an engineer. I figured I would be a fiction writer on the side, and that, I think, is perfectly acceptable to Asian parents".[7] In 1989, he graduated from Brown University with a Bachelor of Science after choosing to study computer science over physics.[9][10] As an undergraduate, Chiang continued to write sci-fi stories, though they were ultimately unpublished.[8]

Career

After attending and graduating from the Clarion Workshop in 1989 Chiang sold his first story, "The Tower of Babylon", to Omni magazine,[11] and was awarded a Nebula Award for it in 1990.[5] His later stories have won numerous other awards, making him one of the most-honored writers in contemporary science fiction. Chiang's first short story collection, Stories of Your Life and Others (2002) was published in 2002 by Tor Books and comprises his first eight stories. The collection was reprinted in 2016 as Arrival to coincide with the adaptation of "Story of Your Life" as the film Arrival.[12][13]

As of July 2002, Chiang was working as a technical writer in the software industry and resided in Bellevue, Washington, near Seattle.[14] He was an instructor at the Clarion Workshop at UC San Diego in 2012 and 2016.[15]

Chiang's second short story collection, Exhalation: Stories was published in May 2019 by Alfred A. Knopf.[16] Chiang has published eighteen short stories, novelettes, and novellas as of 2019 . In 2022, Chiang became a Miller Scholar in the Santa Fe Institute.[17][18]

In 2023, Chiang was named one of Time's 100 most influential people in AI.[19]

Writing style and influences

Isaac Asimov and Arthur C. Clarke inspired Chiang when he first started writing,[20] while the works of Gene Wolfe, John Crowley and Edward Bryant were his creative influences in college.[21]

Chiang has said that one of the reasons science fiction writing interests him is that it allows him to make philosophical questions "storyable".[21] He enjoys reading explanatory story notes by authors, and includes them in his own collections. He considers these not the "precise response to 'How did you get the idea?,' but it's a way to answer the reader if they knew what the best question to ask [about the story] was".[22]

Reception

Critic John Clute has written that Chiang's work has a "tight-hewn and lucid style... [which] has a magnetic effect on the reader".[23] Critic and poet Joyce Carol Oates wrote that Chiang explores "conventional tropes of science fiction in highly unconventional ways" in "teasing, tormenting, illuminating, thrilling" fashion, comparing him favorably to Philip K. Dick, James Tiptree Jr. and Jorge Luis Borges.[24] Writer Peter Watts has praised Chiang's work, writing: "We share a secret prayer, we writers of short SF. We utter it whenever one of our stories is about to appear in public, and it goes like this: Please, Lord. Please, if it be Thy will, don’t let Ted Chiang publish a story this year."[25]

Former US president Barack Obama included Chiang's short story collection Exhalation in his 2019 reading list, praising it as the "best kind of science fiction".[26]

Awards

Ted Chiang has won or been nominated for several awards for several of his works.

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.[27]

Chiang was inducted into the Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame in 2020. In 2024, Chiang won the PEN/Malamud Award for "excellence in the art of the short story"[28][29][30] and the American Humanist Association's Inquiry and Innovation Award.[31]

WorkYear & AwardCategoryResultRef.
Tower of Babylon1991 Locus AwardNovelette[32]
1991 Hugo AwardNovelette[33]
1990 Nebula AwardNovelette[34]
1991 SF Chronicle AwardNovelette[35]
1992 Astounding Award for Best New Writer[36]
1998 Premio IgnotusForeign Story[37]
Division by Zero1992 Locus AwardShort Story
Understand1991 Asimov's Readers' PollNovelette[38]
1992 Locus AwardNovelette
1992 Hugo AwardNovelette[39]
1994 Hayakawa's S-F Magazine Reader's AwardForeign Short Story
Story of Your Life1998 Otherwise AwardHonor[40]
1998 HOMer AwardNovella[41]
1999 Locus AwardNovella
1999 Hugo AwardNovella[42]
1999 Theodore Sturgeon AwardShort Science Fiction[43]
1999 Nebula AwardNovella[44]
2001 Hayakawa's S-F Magazine Reader's AwardForeign Short Story
2002 Seiun AwardTranslated Short Story
Seventy-Two Letters2000 Sidewise Award for Alternate HistoryShort Form
2001 Theodore Sturgeon AwardShort Science Fiction[45]
2001 World Fantasy AwardNovella
2001 Hugo AwardNovella[46]
2001 Locus AwardNovella
2002 Hayakawa's S-F Magazine Reader's AwardForeign Short Story
Catching Crumbs from the Table (aka: The Evolution of Human Science)2001 Locus AwardShort Story
Hell Is the Absence of God2002 Hugo AwardNovelette[47]
2002 Locus AwardNovelette
2002 Theodore Sturgeon AwardShort Science Fiction[48]
2002 Nebula AwardNovelette[49]
2004 Seiun AwardTranslated Short Story
2005 Premio IgnotusForeign Story[50]
2013 Kurd Laßwitz AwardForeign Work (Translated as Die Hölle ist die Abwesenheit Gottes)
Liking What You See: A Documentary2002 Otherwise AwardHonor[51]
2003 Theodore Sturgeon AwardShort Science Fiction[52]
2003 Locus AwardNovelette
The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate2007 BSFA AwardShort Fiction
2008 Hugo AwardNovelette[53]
2007 Nebula AwardNovelette[54]
2008 Theodore Sturgeon AwardShort Science Fiction[55]
2008 Locus AwardNovelette
2009 Seiun AwardTranslated Short Story
Stories of Your Life and Others2003 Locus AwardCollection
2007 Grand Prix de l'ImaginaireForeign Short story/Collection of Foreign Short Stories[56]
2017 Washington State Book AwardFiction
Exhalation2008 BSFA AwardShort Fiction
2009 Hugo AwardShort Story[57]
2009 Locus AwardShort Story[58]
2010 Grand Prix de l'ImaginaireForeign Short story/Collection of Foreign Short Stories[59]
2011 Seiun AwardTranslated Short Story
2021 Ignotus AwardsForeign Short Story[60]
Exhalation: Stories (Collection)2019 Bram Stoker AwardFiction Collection[61]
2019 Goodreads Choice AwardsScience Fiction[62]
2019 Ray Bradbury Prize[63][64]
2020 Locus AwardCollection[65]
2021 Shelley AwardThe Mary Shelley Award for Outstanding Fictional Work[66]
2021 Grand prix de l'ImaginaireForeign Short story/Collection of Foreign Short Stories[67]
The Lifecycle of Software Objects2011 RUSA CODES Reading ListScience Fiction[68]
2011 Hugo AwardNovella[69]
2010 Nebula AwardNovella[70]
2011 Locus AwardNovella[71]
2012 Seiun AwardTranslated Short Story[72]
2013 Premio IgnotusForeign Story
2014 FantLab's Book of the Year AwardTranslated Novella/Short Story
The Truth of Fact, the Truth of Feeling2014 Locus AwardNovelette[73]
2014 Hugo AwardNovelette[74]
2016 Premio IgnotusForeign Story[75]
Arrival2017 Hugo AwardDramatic Presentation - Long Form[76]
Omphalos2020 Hugo AwardNovelette[77]
2020 Theodore Sturgeon AwardShort Science Fiction[78]
2020 Seiun AwardTranslated Short Story[79]
2020: Ignyte AwardNovelette[80]
2020 Locus AwardNovelette[65]
Anxiety Is the Dizziness of Freedom2020 Hugo AwardNovella[77]
2019 Nebula AwardNovella[81][82]
2020 Seiun AwardTranslated Short Story[79]
2020 Locus AwardNovella[65]
It's 2059, and the Rich Kids are Still Winning2020 Locus AwardShort Story[65]
"Why A.I. Isn’t Going to Make Art"2024 BSFAShort Non-Fiction[83]

Personal life

As of 2016, Chiang lives in Bellevue, Washington, with his long-time partner, Marcia Glover,[84] whom he met while they both were working at Microsoft. She worked as an interface designer and then a photographer.[5]

Works

Short stories

Collections

Non-fiction

Lectures

  • Ted Chiang on the Future, MoMA PS1, July 8, 2013[105]
  • Imaginary Science and Magic in Fiction, Notre Dame Technology Ethics Center, November 2020[106]

Philosophy

Film

Main article: Arrival (film)

The screenwriter Eric Heisserer adapted Chiang's story "Story of Your Life" into the 2016 film Arrival. Directed by Denis Villeneuve, the film stars Amy Adams and Jeremy Renner.[107][108]

References

  1. ^ Chiang's awards, Internet Speculative Fiction Database.
  2. ^ "Ted Chiang". Institute for Advanced Study, University of Notre Dame. Retrieved July 2, 2020.
  3. ^ "Ted Chiang" (Summary Bibliography). Internet Speculative Fiction Database. Retrieved October 4, 2012.
  4. ^ Klein, Ezra (2023-03-03). "人工智能真正的恐怖之处" [The Imminent Danger of A.I. Is One We’re Not Talking About] (in zh-cmn-hans). The New York Times. Retrieved 2025-02-14. Translated from The Imminent Danger of A.I. Is One We’re Not Talking About.
  5. ^ Rothman, Joshua (January 5, 2017). "Ted Chiang's Soulful Science Fiction". The New Yorker. Retrieved January 7, 2017.
  6. ^ Fan, Christopher T. (November 5, 2014). "Melancholy Transcendence: Ted Chiang and Asian American Postracial Form". Post45
  7. ^ Yeh, James & Millionaire, Tony (2019-12-02). "An Interview with Ted Chiang". The Believer. No. 128. Retrieved 2023-05-26.
  8. ^ Clark, Taylor (2015-01-04). "The Perfectionist". The California Sunday Magazine. Retrieved 2025-02-14.
  9. ^ "Ted Chiang interviewed - infinity plus non-fiction". Infinity Plus. 2002. Archived 2022-12-01 at the Wayback Machine. Retrieved 2023-05-26.
  10. ^ Smith, Andy (2020). "Alien Worlds: A new book of short stories from award-winning author Ted Chiang '89". Brown Alumni Magazine. Retrieved 2023-05-26.
  11. ^ McCarron, Meghan (July 18, 2016). "The Legendary Ted Chiang on Seeing His Stories Adapted and the Ever-Expanding Popularity of SF". Electric Literature
  12. ^ "ARRIVAL (STORIES OF YOUR LIFE MTI)". Chapters-Indigo. Retrieved 30 November 2016.
  13. ^ Ted Chiang (2016). Arrival: originally published as – Stories Of Your Life And Others. Doubleday. ISBN 978-0525433675.
  14. ^ "An Interview with Ted Chiang". SF Site. July 2002. Archived from the original on February 17, 2003. Retrieved October 4, 2012.
  15. ^ "Clarion at UC San Diego Graduates and Instructors". Clarion. Archived from the original on April 27, 2008. Retrieved December 9, 2016.
  16. ^ "Exhalation: Stories". Publishers Weekly
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  23. ^ Chiang, SF Encyclopedia.
  24. ^ Oates, Joyce Carol (2019-05-06). "Science Fiction Doesn't Have to Be Dystopian". The New Yorker. ISSN 0028-792X. Retrieved 2023-05-26.
  25. ^ Watts, Peter (2016-11-30). "Changing Our Minds: "Story of Your Life" in Print and on Screen.". No Moods, Ads or Cutesy Fucking Icons. Retrieved 2023-05-26.
  26. ^ Brady, Amy (2019-08-20). "Barack Obama's 2019 Summer Reading List". Chicago Review of Books. Retrieved 2023-05-26.
  27. ^ "Chiang". fantasticmetropolis.com. Archived from the original on April 2, 2008.
  28. ^ "Science Fiction Author Ted Chiang Honoured with the PEN/Malamud Award for Short Story Writing". Times Now. 2024-06-12. Retrieved 2024-06-12.
  29. ^ "Ted Chiang has won the PEN/Faulkner Foundation's short story prize.". Literary Hub. 2024-06-12. Retrieved 2024-06-12.
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  31. ^ Humanist, The (2024-08-22). "Meet the 2024 Humanist Awardees". TheHumanist.com. Retrieved 2024-08-26.
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  40. ^ "1998 Otherwise Award Honor". otherwiseaward.org Retrieved 25 April 2026.
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  43. ^ "Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award (Past Winners)". sfcenter.ku.edu Retrieved 25 April 2026.
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  61. ^ "2019 Bram Stoker Awards". thebramstokerawards.com Retrieved 26 April 2026.
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  66. ^ "2021 the Mary Shelley Award for Outstanding Fictional Work"
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  84. ^ Macdonald, Moira (November 2, 2016). "How a Bellevue writer's short story became a major new film". The Seattle Times. Retrieved June 10, 2019.
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  87. ^ Chiang, Ted (June 2000). "Catching crumbs from the table". Nature. 405 (6786): 517. doi:10.1038/35014679. ISSN 1476-4687. PMID 10850694
  88. ^ Chiang, Ted (July 2005). "What's expected of us". Nature. 436 (7047): 150. Bibcode:2005Natur.436..150C. doi:10.1038/436150a. ISSN 1476-4687
  89. ^ "The Truth of Fact, the Truth of Feeling by Ted Chiang — Subterranean Press". February 22, 2014. Archived from the original on February 22, 2014. Retrieved May 6, 2019.
  90. ^ "e-flux journal 56th Venice Biennale — SUPERCOMMUNITY – The Great Silence". e-flux Supercommunity. Retrieved May 6, 2019.
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  93. ^ "Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet No. 23 | Small Beer Press". Small Beer Press | Really rather good books.. 2008-11-01. Retrieved 2023-05-11.
  94. ^ "Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet No. 26 | Small Beer Press". Small Beer Press | Really rather good books.. 2010-11-18. Retrieved 2023-05-11.
  95. ^ words, Ted Chiang Issue: 31 October 2011 289 (2011-10-31). "Introduction to "Particle Theory"". Strange Horizons. Retrieved 2023-05-11.
  96. ^ "If Chinese Were Phonetic". The New Yorker. 2016-05-09. Retrieved 2023-05-11.
  97. ^ Chiang, Ted (2017-12-18). "Silicon Valley Is Turning Into Its Own Worst Fear". BuzzFeed News. Retrieved 2023-06-04.
  98. ^ "What If Parents Loved Strangers' Children As Much As Their Own?". The New Yorker. 2017-12-31. Retrieved 2023-05-11.
  99. ^ Chiang, Ted (March 30, 2021). "Why Computers Won't Make Themselves Smarter". The New Yorker
  100. ^ "Publication: The Art and Science of Arrival". www.isfdb.org. Retrieved 2023-05-11.
  101. ^ "Publication: The History of Science Fiction: A Graphic Novel Adventure". www.isfdb.org. Retrieved 2023-05-11.
  102. ^ Chiang, Ted (February 9, 2023). "ChatGPT Is a Blurry JPEG of the Web". The New Yorker
  103. ^ Chiang, Ted (May 4, 2023). "Will A.I. Become the New McKinsey?". The New Yorker
  104. ^ Chiang, Ted (2024-08-31). "Why A.I. Isn't Going to Make Art". The New Yorker. ISSN 0028-792X. Retrieved 2024-09-07.
  105. ^ "Ted Chiang on the Future", retrieved 2023-05-11
  106. ^ "Ted Chiang "Imaginary Science and Magic in Fiction"", February 24, 2021, retrieved 2023-05-11
  107. ^ "Jeremy Renner Joins Amy Adams in Sci-Fi 'Story of Your Life'". The Hollywood Reporter. March 6, 2015.
  108. ^ 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 August 17, 2016.