Ted Chiang

Ted Chiang (Chinese: 姜峯楠; pinyin: Jiāng Fēngnán; 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 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.

Ted Chiang
Chiang in 2011
Native name	姜峯楠
Born	1967 (age 57–58) Port Jefferson, New York, U.S.
Occupation	Fiction writer technical writer
Alma mater	Brown University (BS)
Period	1990–present
Genre	Science fiction, fantasy
Notable works	‟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)
Notable awards	See list
Chinese name
Traditional Chinese	姜峯楠
Simplified Chinese	姜峰楠
Transcriptions Standard Mandarin Hanyu Pinyin Jiāng Fēngnán Bopomofo ㄐㄧㄤㄈㄥㄋㄢˊ Wade–Giles Chiang1 Feng1-nan2 IPA [tɕjáŋ fə́ŋnǎn]

Early life and education

Ted Chiang was born in 1967 to a Taiwanese American family in Port Jefferson, New York.^[3] His Chinese name is Chiang Feng-nan (姜峯楠; Jiāng Fēngnán).^[4] Both of his parents are Taiwanese waishengren who were born in mainland China and migrated to Taiwan with their families during the retreat of the government of the Republic of China to Taiwan 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 (d. 2019) was a librarian.^[7] Chiang also has a sister who is a physician.^[7]

Chiang grew up in 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 (B.S.) degree 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^[update], 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.^[update] 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

Chiang has said Isaac Asimov and Arthur C. Clarke inspired him when he was young,^[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]

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.^[27]

Awards

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^[28] 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.^[29]

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"^[30][31][32] and the American Humanist Association's Inquiry and Innovation Award.^[33]

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

Works

Short stories

• "Tower of Babylon", Omni, 1990 (Nebula Award winner)
• "Division by Zero", Full Spectrum 3, 1991^[34]
• "Understand", Asimov's Science Fiction, 1991^[35]
• "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^[36]
• "Seventy-Two Letters", Vanishing Acts, 2000 (Sidewise Award winner)^[37]
• "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^[38]
• "The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate", Subterranean Press, 2007 and F&SF, September 2007 (Nebula Award, Hugo Award and Seiun Award winner)^[39]
• "Exhalation", Eclipse 2, 2008 (BSFA, Locus Award, and Hugo Award winner)^[40]
• "The Lifecycle of Software Objects", Subterranean Press, July 2010 (Locus Award, Hugo Award and Seiun Award winner)^[41]
• "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^[42]
• "The Great Silence", e-flux Journal, May 2015 (included in The Best American Short Stories, 2016)^[43]
• "Omphalos", Exhalation: Stories, 2019
• "Anxiety Is the Dizziness of Freedom", Exhalation: Stories, 2019
• "It's 2059, and the Rich Kids are Still Winning", New York Times, 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)^[44]

Non-fiction

• "Frankenstein's Daughter" by Maureen McHugh: An Appreciation, The Ellen Datlow/SCI FICTION Project, December 30, 2005^[45]
• The Problem of the Traveling Salesman, Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet #23, November 2008^[46]
• Reasoning About the Body, Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet #26, November 2010^[47]
• Introduction to "Particle Theory", Strange Horizons, October 31, 2011^[48]
• Bad Character, The New Yorker, May 9, 2016^[49]
• Silicon Valley Is Turning Into Its Own Worst Fear, Buzzfeed, December 18, 2017^[50]
• What If Parents Loved Strangers’ Children As Much As Their Own?, The New Yorker, December 31, 2017^[51]
• Why Computers Won’t Make Themselves Smarter, The New Yorker, March 30, 2021^[52]
• Foreword to The Art and Science of Arrival by Tanya Lapointe, 2022^[53]
• Foreword to The History of Science Fiction: A Graphic Novel Adventure by Xavier Dollo, 2022^[54]
• ChatGPT Is a Blurry JPEG of the Web, The New Yorker, February 9, 2023^[55]
• Will A.I. Become the New McKinsey?, The New Yorker, May 4, 2023^[56]
• Why A.I. Isn't Going to Make Art, The New Yorker, August 31, 2024^[57]

Lectures

• Ted Chiang on the Future, MoMA PS1, July 8, 2013^[58]
• Imaginary Science and Magic in Fiction, Notre Dame Technology Ethics Center, November 2020^[59]

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.^[60][61]

Personal life

As of 2016, Chiang lives in Bellevue, Washington, with his long-time partner, Marcia Glover,^[62] whom he met while they both were working at Microsoft. She worked as an interface designer and then a photographer.^[5]

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". Internet Speculative Fiction Database (Summary Bibliography). Retrieved October 4, 2012.
4. Klein, Ezra (March 3, 2023). "人工智能真正的恐怖之处" [The Imminent Danger of A.I. Is One We’re Not Talking About]. The New York Times (in Chinese). Retrieved February 14, 2025. 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 (December 2, 2019). "An Interview with Ted Chiang". The Believer. No. 128. Retrieved May 26, 2023.
8. Clark, Taylor (January 4, 2015). "The Perfectionist". The California Sunday Magazine. Retrieved February 14, 2025.
9. "Ted Chiang interviewed - infinity plus non-fiction". Infinity Plus. 2002. Archived from the original on December 1, 2022. Retrieved May 26, 2023.
10. Smith, Andy (2020). "Alien Worlds: A new book of short stories from award-winning author Ted Chiang '89". Brown Alumni Magazine. Retrieved May 26, 2023.
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 November 30, 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. 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.
17. "Ted Chiang joins SFI Miller Scholars | Santa Fe Institute". www.santafe.edu. January 30, 2023. Retrieved June 18, 2023.
18. "Ted Chiang. Macrocosm in Miniature" (PDF). Extraterritorial. 2. SFI Press. 2023. Retrieved June 18, 2023.
19. "TIME100 AI 2023: Ted Chiang". Time. September 7, 2023. Retrieved September 8, 2023.
20. "Ted Chiang, interviewed by Gavin J. Grant". IndieBound. Archived from the original on April 7, 2017.
21. McCarron, Meghan (July 18, 2016). "The Legendary Ted Chiang on Seeing His Stories Adapted and the Ever-Expanding Popularity of SF". Electric Literature. Retrieved May 26, 2023.
22. Orr, Niela (December 2, 2019). "An Interview with Ted Chiang". The Believer (magazine). Retrieved May 26, 2023.
23. Chiang, SF Encyclopedia.
24. Oates, Joyce Carol (May 6, 2019). "Science Fiction Doesn't Have to Be Dystopian". The New Yorker. ISSN 0028-792X. Retrieved May 26, 2023.
25. Watts, Peter (November 30, 2016). "Changing Our Minds: "Story of Your Life" in Print and on Screen". No Moods, Ads or Cutesy Fucking Icons. Retrieved May 26, 2023.
26. Brady, Amy (August 20, 2019). "Barack Obama's 2019 Summer Reading List". Chicago Review of Books. Retrieved May 26, 2023.
27. "Silicon Valley Is Turning Into Its Own Worst Fear". BuzzFeed News. December 18, 2017. Retrieved May 6, 2019.
28. "2011 Hugo and Campbell Awards Winners". Locus. Retrieved August 21, 2011.
29. "Chiang". fantasticmetropolis.com. Archived from the original on April 2, 2008.
30. "Science Fiction Author Ted Chiang Honoured with the PEN/Malamud Award for Short Story Writing". Times Now. June 12, 2024. Retrieved June 12, 2024.
31. "Ted Chiang has won the PEN/Faulkner Foundation's short story prize". Literary Hub. June 12, 2024. Retrieved June 12, 2024.
32. "Chiang Wins PEN/Malamud Award". Locus Online. June 12, 2024. Retrieved June 13, 2024.
33. Humanist, The (August 22, 2024). "Meet the 2024 Humanist Awardees". TheHumanist.com. Retrieved August 26, 2024.
34. "Fantastic Metropolis » Division by Zero". November 21, 2011. Archived from the original on November 21, 2011. Retrieved May 6, 2019.
35. "Understand - a novelette by Ted Chiang". May 27, 2014. Archived from the original on May 27, 2014. Retrieved May 6, 2019.
36. Chiang, Ted (June 2000). "Catching crumbs from the table". Nature. 405 (6786): 517. doi:10.1038/35014679. ISSN 1476-4687. PMID 10850694.
37. "Seventy-Two Letters by Ted Chiang". Archived from the original on August 2, 2001. Retrieved May 6, 2019.
38. Chiang, Ted (July 2005). "What's expected of us". Nature. 436 (7047): 150. Bibcode:2005Natur.436..150C. doi:10.1038/436150a. ISSN 1476-4687.
39. "Fantasy and Science Fiction: Fiction". February 14, 2008. Archived from the original on February 14, 2008. Retrieved May 6, 2019.
40. "Exhalation". Lightspeed Magazine. April 29, 2014. Retrieved May 6, 2019.
41. "Subterranean Press Fiction: The Lifecycle of Software Objects by Ted Chiang". June 7, 2018. Archived from the original on June 7, 2018. Retrieved May 6, 2019.
42. "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.
43. "e-flux journal 56th Venice Biennale — SUPERCOMMUNITY – The Great Silence". e-flux Supercommunity. Retrieved May 6, 2019.
44. "Exhalation by Ted Chiang". Penguin Random House.
45. "The ED SF Project: "Frankenstein's Daughter" by Maureen McHugh: An Appreciation by Ted Chiang". Retrieved May 11, 2023.
46. "Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet No. 23 | Small Beer Press". Small Beer Press | Really rather good books. November 1, 2008. Retrieved May 11, 2023.
47. "Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet No. 26 | Small Beer Press". Small Beer Press | Really rather good books. November 18, 2010. Retrieved May 11, 2023.
48. words, Ted Chiang Issue: 31 October 2011 289 (October 31, 2011). "Introduction to "Particle Theory"". Strange Horizons. Retrieved May 11, 2023.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
49. "If Chinese Were Phonetic". The New Yorker. May 9, 2016. Retrieved May 11, 2023.
50. Chiang, Ted (December 18, 2017). "Silicon Valley Is Turning Into Its Own Worst Fear". BuzzFeed News. Retrieved June 4, 2023.
51. "What If Parents Loved Strangers' Children As Much As Their Own?". The New Yorker. December 31, 2017. Retrieved May 11, 2023.
52. Chiang, Ted (March 30, 2021). "Why Computers Won't Make Themselves Smarter". The New Yorker.
53. "Publication: The Art and Science of Arrival". www.isfdb.org. Retrieved May 11, 2023.
54. "Publication: The History of Science Fiction: A Graphic Novel Adventure". www.isfdb.org. Retrieved May 11, 2023.
55. Chiang, Ted (February 9, 2023). "ChatGPT Is a Blurry JPEG of the Web". The New Yorker.
56. Chiang, Ted (May 4, 2023). "Will A.I. Become the New McKinsey?". The New Yorker.
57. Chiang, Ted (August 31, 2024). "Why A.I. Isn't Going to Make Art". The New Yorker. ISSN 0028-792X. Retrieved September 7, 2024.
58. Ted Chiang on the Future, retrieved May 11, 2023
59. Ted Chiang "Imaginary Science and Magic in Fiction", retrieved May 11, 2023
60. "Jeremy Renner Joins Amy Adams in Sci-Fi 'Story of Your Life'". The Hollywood Reporter. March 6, 2015.
61. 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.
62. Macdonald, Moira (November 2, 2016). "How a Bellevue writer's short story became a major new film". The Seattle Times. Retrieved June 10, 2019.

External links

• Interview conducted by Avi Solomon
• Interview conducted by Al Robertson
• Interview conducted by Lou Anders
• Interview conducted by Gavin J. Grant
• Interview conducted by James Yeh
• Ted Chiang at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database
• Ted Chiang's online fiction at Free Speculative Fiction Online
• Ted Chiang at IMDb
• Ted Chiang at Library of Congress, with 3 library catalog records