Loading AI tools
American science fiction writer (born 1967) From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Ted Chiang (traditional Chinese: 姜峯楠; born 1967) is an American science fiction writer. His 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 in 2020–2021.[2] Chiang is also a frequent non-fiction contributor to the New Yorker Magazine, most recently on topics related to computer technology, such as artificial intelligence.
Ted Chiang | |
---|---|
Native name | 姜峯楠 |
Born | 1967 (age 56–57) Port Jefferson, New York, U.S. |
Occupation | Fiction writer, technical writer |
Education | Brown University (BS) |
Period | 1990–present |
Genre | Science fiction, fantasy |
Notable works | ‟Tower of Babylon” (1990) ‟Story of Your Life” (1998) ‟The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate” (2007) Stories of Your Life and Others (2002) Exhalation: Stories (2019) ‟Hell is the Absence of God” (2001) |
Ted Chiang | |||||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Traditional Chinese | 姜峯楠 | ||||||||||
Simplified Chinese | 姜峰楠 | ||||||||||
|
Ted Chiang was born in 1967 in Port Jefferson, New York, to a Taiwanese American family.[3] His Chinese name is Chiang Feng-nan (姜峯楠; Jiāng Fēngnán).[4] Both of his parents were born in Mainland China and immigrated to Taiwan with their families during the Chinese Communist Revolution before immigrating to the United States.[5] His father, Fu-pen Chiang, is a distinguished professor of mechanical engineering at Stony Brook University.[6] His mother was a librarian.[7]
Chiang graduated from Brown University in 1989 with a Bachelor of Science (B.S.) degree in computer science.[8][9][10]
Chiang began submitting stories to magazines in high school. After attending the Clarion Workshop in 1989 he sold his first story, "The Tower of Babylon", to Omni magazine,[4] and was awarded a Nebula Award for it in 1990. 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.[11][12]
As of July 2002[update], Chiang was working as a technical writer in the software industry and resided in Bellevue, Washington, near Seattle.[13] He was an instructor at the Clarion Workshop at UC San Diego in 2012 and 2016.[14]
Chiang's second short story collection, Exhalation: Stories was published in May 2019 by Alfred A. Knopf.[15] Chiang has published eighteen short stories, novelettes, and novellas as of 2019.[update] In 2022, Chiang became a Miller Scholar in the Santa Fe Institute.[16][17]
In 2023, Chiang was named one of Time's 100 most influential people in AI.[18]
Chiang has said Isaac Asimov and Arthur C. Clarke inspired him when he was young,[19] while the works of Gene Wolfe, John Crowley and Edward Bryant were his creative influences in college.[10]
Chiang has said that one of the reasons science fiction writing interests him is that it allows him to make philosophical questions "storyable".[10] He enjoys reading story notes by authors, and himself includes them with his short story 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".[20]
Critic John Clute has written that Chiang's work has a "tight-hewn and lucid style... [which] has a magnetic effect on the reader".[21] 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.[22] 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."[23]
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".[24]
Chiang has commented on "metacognition, or thinking about one’s own thinking" being something most humans, but neither animals nor current AI, are capable of, and that capitalism erodes the capacity for this insight, especially for tech company executives.[25]
Chiang has won the following 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 Locus Award for his short story collection Stories of Your Life and Others (2003); 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); a Hugo Award[26] and Locus Award for his novella "The Lifecycle of Software Objects" (2010); a Locus Award for his short story collection Exhalation: Stories (2020); and a Locus Award for his novelette "Omphalos" (2020).
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]
In 2013, his collection of translated stories Die Hölle ist die Abwesenheit Gottes won the German Kurd-Laßwitz-Preis for best foreign science fiction.
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]
Year | Organization | Award title, category | Work | Result | Refs |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
1991 | Locus Magazine | Locus Award for Best Novelette | "Tower of Babylon" | Nominated | |
Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America | Nebula Award for Best Novelette | Won | |||
World Science Fiction Society | Hugo Award for Best Novelette | Nominated | |||
1992 | Locus Magazine | Locus Award for Best Short Story | "Division by Zero" | Nominated | |
Locus Magazine | Locus Award for Best Novelette | "Understand" | Nominated | ||
World Science Fiction Society | Hugo Award for Best Novelette | Nominated | |||
1999 | James Tiptree, Jr. Literary Award Council | James Tiptree Jr. Award | "Story of Your Life" | Nominated | |
Locus Magazine | Locus Award for Best Novella | 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 | Locus Magazine | Locus Award for Best Short Story | "The Evolution of Human Science" | Nominated | |
Locus Magazine | Locus Award for Best Novella | "Seventy-Two Letters" | Nominated | ||
World Fantasy Convention | World Fantasy Award for Best Novella | Nominated | |||
World Science Fiction Society | Hugo Award for Best Novella | Nominated | |||
2002 | Locus Magazine | Locus Award for Best Novelette | "Hell Is the Absence of God" | Won | |
World Science Fiction Society | Hugo Award for Best Novelette | Won | |||
2003 | Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America | Nebula Award for Best Novelette | Won | ||
Locus Magazine | Locus Award for Best Collection | Stories of Your Life and Others | Won | ||
James Tiptree, Jr. Literary Award Council | James Tiptree Jr. Award | "Liking What You See: A Documentary" | Nominated | ||
Locus Magazine | Locus Award for Best Novelette | Nominated | |||
2008 | British Science Fiction Association | BSFA Award, Best Short Fiction |
"The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate" | Nominated | |
Locus Magazine | Locus Award for Best Novelette | 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 | |
Locus Magazine | Locus Award for Best Short Story | Nominated | |||
World Science Fiction Society | Hugo Award for Best Short Story | Won | |||
2011 | Locus Magazine | Locus Award for Best Novella | "The Lifecycle of Software Objects" | Won | |
Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America | Nebula Award for Best Novella | Nominated | |||
World Science Fiction Society | Hugo Award for Best Novella | Won | |||
2014 | Locus Magazine | Locus Award for Best Novelette | "The Truth of Fact, the Truth of Feeling" | Nominated | |
World Science Fiction Society | Hugo Award for Best Novelette | Nominated | |||
2017 | World Science Fiction Society | Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form | Arrival | Won | |
2020 | Locus Magazine | Locus Award for Best Novella | "Anxiety Is the Dizziness of Freedom" | Nominated | |
Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America | Nebula Award for Best Novella | Nominated | |||
World Science Fiction Society | Hugo Award for Best Novella | Nominated | |||
Locus Magazine | Locus Award for Best Collection | Exhalation: Stories | Won | ||
Locus Magazine | Locus Award for Best Short Story | "It's 2059, and the Rich Kids are Still Winning" | Nominated | ||
Locus Magazine | Locus Award for Best Novelette | "Omphalos" | Won | ||
World Science Fiction Society | Hugo Award for Best Novelette | Nominated |
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.[58][59]
As of 2016, Chiang lives in Bellevue, Washington with his long-time partner, Marcia Glover,[60] whom he met while both were working at Microsoft. She worked as an interface designer and then a photographer. Chiang goes to the gym three times per week and enjoys video games.[61]
Seamless Wikipedia browsing. On steroids.
Every time you click a link to Wikipedia, Wiktionary or Wikiquote in your browser's search results, it will show the modern Wikiwand interface.
Wikiwand extension is a five stars, simple, with minimum permission required to keep your browsing private, safe and transparent.