Ted Chiang (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] 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]
Ted Chiang | |
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![]() Chiang in 2011 | |
Born | Port Jefferson, New York |
Occupation | Fiction writer, technical writer |
Citizenship | United States |
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) |
Ted Chiang | |||||||||||
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Traditional Chinese | 姜峯楠 | ||||||||||
Simplified Chinese | 姜峰楠 | ||||||||||
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Ted Chiang was born in 1967 in Port Jefferson, New York.[3] His Chinese name is Chiang Feng-nan (姜峯楠).[4] Both of his parents were born in Mainland China and immigrated to Taiwan with their families during the Chinese Communist Revolution before emigrating to the United States.[5] His father, Fu-pen Chiang, is a distinguished professor of mechanical engineering at Stony Brook University.[6]
Chiang graduated from Brown University with a computer science degree.
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]
As of July 2002[update], he was working as a technical writer in the software industry and resided in Bellevue, Washington, near Seattle.[7] Chiang was an instructor at the Clarion Workshop at UC San Diego in 2012 and 2016.[8]
Chiang has published eighteen short stories, novelettes, and novellas as of 2019.[update]
Critic John Clute has written that Chiang's work has a "tight-hewn and lucid style... [which] has a magnetic effect on the reader".[9]
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.[10]
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[11] 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.[12]
In 2013, his collection of translated stories Die Hölle ist die Abwesenheit Gottes won the German Kurd-Laßwitz-Preis for best foreign science fiction.
Year | Organization | Award title, category | Work | Result | Refs |
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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 |
His novelette The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate (2007) was also published in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction. The Great Silence[13] was included in The Best American Short Stories anthology for 2016.
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.[25][26]
As of 2016, Chiang lives in Bellevue, Washington with his partner, Marcia Glover.[27]
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