Ted Chiang | |||||||||||||
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_(cropped).jpg) Chiang in 2011 | |||||||||||||
| Native name | 姜峯楠 | ||||||||||||
| Born | 1967 (age 57–58) Port Jefferson, New York, U.S. | ||||||||||||
| Occupation |
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| 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 | ||||||||||||
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Ted Chiang (Chinese:姜峯楠;pinyin:Jiāng Fēngnán; born 1967) is an Americanscience fiction writer. His work has won fourNebula awards, fourHugo awards, theJohn W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer, and sixLocus awards.[1] He has published the short story collectionsStories of Your Life and Others (2002) andExhalation: Stories (2019). His short story "Story of Your Life" was the basis of the filmArrival (2016). He was an artist in residence at theUniversity of Notre Dame from 2020 to 2021.[2] Chiang is also a frequentnon-fiction contributor to theNew Yorker, where he writes on topics related tocomputing such asartificial intelligence.
Ted Chiang was born in 1967 to aTaiwanese American family inPort Jefferson, New York.[3] His Chinese name is Chiang Feng-nan (姜峯楠;Jiāng Fēngnán).[4] Both of his parents are Taiwanesewaishengren who were born inmainland China and migrated to Taiwan with their families during theretreat 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 atStony Brook University.[6] His mother (d. 2019) was a librarian.[7] Chiang also has a sister who is a physician.[7]
Chiang grew up onLong Island and, at age 15, began submittingscience 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 fromBrown University with aBachelor of Science (B.S.) degree after choosing to studycomputer science over physics.[9][10] As an undergraduate, Chiang continued to write sci-fi stories, though they were ultimately unpublished.[8]
After attending and graduating from theClarion Workshop in 1989 Chiang sold his first story, "The Tower of Babylon", toOmni 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 contemporaryscience fiction. Chiang's first short story collection,Stories of Your Life and Others (2002) was published in 2002 byTor Books and comprises his first eight stories. The collection was reprinted in 2016 asArrival to coincide with the adaptation of "Story of Your Life" as the filmArrival.[12][13]
As of July 2002[update], Chiang was working as atechnical writer in the software industry and resided inBellevue, Washington, nearSeattle.[14] He was an instructor at the Clarion Workshop atUC San Diego in 2012 and 2016.[15]
Chiang's second short story collection,Exhalation: Stories was published in May 2019 byAlfred A. Knopf.[16] Chiang has published eighteen short stories, novelettes, and novellas as of 2019.[update] In 2022, Chiang became a Miller Scholar in theSanta Fe Institute.[17][18]
In 2023, Chiang was named one ofTime's 100 most influential people in AI.[19]
Chiang has saidIsaac Asimov andArthur C. Clarke inspired him when he was young,[20] while the works ofGene Wolfe,John Crowley andEdward 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]
CriticJohn 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 poetJoyce Carol Oates wrote that Chiang explores "conventional tropes of science fiction in highly unconventional ways" in "teasing, tormenting, illuminating, thrilling" fashion, comparing him favorably toPhilip K. Dick,James Tiptree Jr. andJorge Luis Borges.[24] WriterPeter Watts has praised Chiang's work, writing: "We share a secret prayer, we writers of shortSF. 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 presidentBarack Obama included Chiang's short story collectionExhalation in his 2019 reading list, praising it as the "best kind of science fiction".[26]
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 thePEN/Malamud Award for "excellence in the art of the short story"[28][29][30] and theAmerican Humanist Association's Inquiry and Innovation Award.[31]
| Work | Year & Award | Category | Result | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tower of Babylon | 1991Locus Award | Novelette | Nominated | [32] |
| 1991Hugo Award | Novelette | Nominated | ||
| 1991Nebula Award | Novelette | Won | ||
| 1991 SF Chronicle Award | Novelette | Nominated | [33] | |
| 1992Astounding Award for Best New Writer | Won | |||
| 1998 Premio Ignotus | Foreign Story | Nominated | [34] | |
| Division by Zero | 1992 Locus Award | Short Story | Nominated | |
| Understand | 1991 Asimov's Readers' Poll | Novelette | Won | [35] |
| 1992 Locus Award | Novelette | Nominated | ||
| 1992 Hugo Award | Novelette | Nominated | ||
| 1994Hayakawa's S-F Magazine Reader's Award | Foreign Short Story | Won | ||
| Story of Your Life | 1998Otherwise Award | Honor | ||
| 1998 HOMer Award | Novella | Nominated | [36] | |
| 1999 Locus Award | Novella | Nominated | ||
| 1999 Hugo Award | Novella | Nominated | ||
| 1999Theodore Sturgeon Award | Short Science Fiction | Won | ||
| 2000 Nebula Award | Novella | Won | ||
| 2001 Hayakawa's S-F Magazine Reader's Award | Foreign Short Story | Won | ||
| 2002Seiun Award | Translated Short Story | Won | ||
| Seventy-Two Letters | 2000Sidewise Award for Alternate History | Short Form | Won | |
| 2001 Theodore Sturgeon Award | Short Science Fiction | Finalist | [37] | |
| 2001World Fantasy Award | Novella | Nominated | ||
| 2001 Hugo Award | Novella | Nominated | ||
| 2001 Locus Award | Novella | Nominated | ||
| 2002Hayakawa's S-F Magazine Reader's Award | Foreign Short Story | Won | ||
| Catching Crumbs from the Table (aka: The Evolution of Human Science) | 2001 Locus Award | Short Story | Nominated | |
| Hell Is the Absence of God | 2002 Hugo Award | Novelette | Won | |
| 2002 Locus Award | Novelette | Won | ||
| 2002 Theodore Sturgeon Award | Short Science Fiction | Finalist | [38] | |
| 2003 Nebula Award | Novelette | Won | ||
| 2004 Seiun Award | Translated Short Story | Won | ||
| 2005 Premio Ignotus | Foreign Story | Nominated | [39] | |
| 2013Kurd Laßwitz Award | Foreign Work (Translated asDie Hölle ist die Abwesenheit Gottes) | Won | ||
| Liking What You See: A Documentary | 2002 Otherwise Award | Honor | ||
| 2003 Theodore Sturgeon Award | Short Science Fiction | Finalist | [40] | |
| 2003 Locus Award | Novelette | Nominated | ||
| The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate | 2007BSFA Award | Short Fiction | Nominated | |
| 2008 Hugo Award | Novelette | Won | ||
| 2008 Nebula Award | Novelette | Won | ||
| 2008 Theodore Sturgeon Award | Short Science Fiction | Finalist | [41] | |
| 2008 Locus Award | Novelette | Nominated | ||
| 2009 Seiun Award | Translated Short Story | Won | ||
| Stories of Your Life and Others | 2003 Locus Award | Collection | Won | |
| 2007Grand Prix de l'Imaginaire | Foreign Short story/Collection of Foreign Short Stories | Nominated | [42] | |
| 2017Washington State Book Award | Fiction | Nominated | ||
| Exhalation | 2008BSFA Award | Short Fiction | Won | |
| 2009 Hugo Award | Short Story | Won | ||
| 2009 Locus Award | Short Story | Won | ||
| 2010Grand Prix de l'Imaginaire | Foreign Short story/Collection of Foreign Short Stories | Won | [43] | |
| 2011 Seiun Award | Translated Short Story | Nominated | ||
| 2019Ray Bradbury Prize | Finalist | |||
| 2021 Ignotus Awards | Foreign Short Story | Won | [44] | |
| Exhalation (Collection) | 2019Bram Stoker Award | Fiction Collection | Nominated | |
| 2019Goodreads Choice Awards | Science Fiction | Nominated | [45] | |
| 2020 Locus Award | Collection | Won | ||
| 2021 Shelley Award | The Mary Shelley Award for Outstanding Fictional Work | Won | [46] | |
| 2021Grand prix de l'Imaginaire | Foreign Short story/Collection of Foreign Short Stories | Nominated | [47] | |
| The Lifecycle of Software Objects | 2011RUSA CODES Reading List | Science Fiction | Shortlisted | [48] |
| 2011 Hugo Award | Novella | Won | ||
| 2011 Nebula Award | Novella | Nominated | ||
| 2011 Locus Award | Novella | Won | ||
| 2012 Seiun Award | Translated Short Story | Won | ||
| 2013 Premio Ignotus | Foreign Story | Nominated | ||
| 2014FantLab's Book of the Year Award | Translated Novella/Short Story | Nominated | ||
| The Truth of Fact, the Truth of Feeling | 2014 Locus Award | Novelette | Nominated | |
| 2014 Hugo Award | Novelette | Nominated | ||
| 2016 Premio Ignotus | Foreign Story | Nominated | [49] | |
| Arrival | 2017 Hugo Award | Dramatic Presentation - Long Form | Won | |
| Omphalos | 2020 Hugo Award | Novelette | Nominated | |
| 2020 Theodore Sturgeon Award | Short Science Fiction | Finalist | [50] | |
| 2020 Seiun Award | Translated Short Story | Nominated | ||
| 2020: Ignyte Award | Novelette | Finalist | [51] | |
| 2020 Locus Award | Novelette | Won | ||
| Anxiety Is the Dizziness of Freedom | 2020 Hugo Award | Novella | Nominated | |
| 2020 Nebula Award | Novella | Nominated | ||
| 2020 Seiun Award | Translated Short Story | Nominated | ||
| 2020 Locus Award | Novella | Nominated | ||
| It's 2059, and the Rich Kids are Still Winning | 2020 Locus Award | Short Story | Nominated | |
| "Why A.I. Isn’t Going to Make Art" | 2024 BSFA | Short Non-Fiction | Won | [52] |
As of 2016, Chiang lives inBellevue, Washington, with his long-time partner, Marcia Glover,[53] whom he met while they both were working at Microsoft. She worked as an interface designer and then a photographer.[5]
The screenwriterEric Heisserer adapted Chiang's story "Story of Your Life" into the 2016 filmArrival. Directed byDenis Villeneuve, the film starsAmy Adams andJeremy Renner.[76][77]
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