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Waste Tide
Cover of Waste Tide
Waste Tide
A Guardian Science Fiction Book of the Year.
Mimi is drowning in the world's trash.
She's a 'waste girl', a scavenger picking through towering heaps of hazardous electronic detritus. Along with thousands of other migrant workers, she was lured to Silicon Isle, off the southern coast of China, by the promise of steady work and a better life.
But Silicon Isle is where the rotten fruits of capitalism and consumer culture come to their toxic end. The land is hopelessly polluted, the workers utterly at the mercy of those in power. And now a storm is gathering, as ruthless local gangs skirmish for control, eco-terrorists conspire, investors hunger for profit, and a Chinese-American interpreter searches for his roots.
As these forces collide, conflict erupts – a war between rich and poor, a battle between past and future. Mimi must decide if she will remain a pawn... or change the rules of the game altogether.
'An accomplished eco-techno-thriller with heart and soul' DAVID MITCHELL.
'Waste Tide is a work of spoiled and toxic beauty... It's more than a timely eco-thriller; it's a dark mirror held up to our selves' SIMON INGS.
A Guardian Science Fiction Book of the Year.
Mimi is drowning in the world's trash.
She's a 'waste girl', a scavenger picking through towering heaps of hazardous electronic detritus. Along with thousands of other migrant workers, she was lured to Silicon Isle, off the southern coast of China, by the promise of steady work and a better life.
But Silicon Isle is where the rotten fruits of capitalism and consumer culture come to their toxic end. The land is hopelessly polluted, the workers utterly at the mercy of those in power. And now a storm is gathering, as ruthless local gangs skirmish for control, eco-terrorists conspire, investors hunger for profit, and a Chinese-American interpreter searches for his roots.
As these forces collide, conflict erupts – a war between rich and poor, a battle between past and future. Mimi must decide if she will remain a pawn... or change the rules of the game altogether.
'An accomplished eco-techno-thriller with heart and soul' DAVID MITCHELL.
'Waste Tide is a work of spoiled and toxic beauty... It's more than a timely eco-thriller; it's a dark mirror held up to our selves' SIMON INGS.
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About the Author-
  • Chen Qiufan is an award-winning science fiction writer. He grew up near Guiyu, China, home to the world's largest e-waste recycling centre, an area the UN called an 'environmental calamity' and his experiences there inspired The Waste Tide. He currently lives in Shanghai and Beijing and works as the founder of Thema Mundi Studio. chenqiufan.cn @ChenQiufan
Reviews-
  • Publisher's Weekly

    Starred review from February 25, 2019
    Anglophone readers will cherish the opportunity to experience Chen’s sweeping, complex, and deeply emotional near-future dystopian vision via this thoughtful rendition by Hugo-winning translator and author Liu that maintains the story’s essential Chinese character. Guangdong Province’s environmentally devastated Silicon Isle, ruled by three powerful clans, is the destination for the electronic garbage created by a world addicted to body enhancements. The rubbish is processed in hellish conditions by the migrant workers considered by the rich natives to be subhuman “waste people.” Chen Kaizong, a Silicon Isle–born but America-trained translator, reconnects to his heritage and clan family while accompanying Scott Brandle, a visiting representative of TerraGreen Recycling, which wants to automate the process. Meanwhile, waste girl Mimi, on the run from the henchmen of the Luo clan after having been connected to the mysterious illness of the clan leader’s grandson, becomes the central figure in a rising rebellion. Liu’s careful handling of multiple Sinitic languages, as well as naming conventions that connect to class, education, and geographical origin, maintains the flavor of the setting and preserves the integrity of Chen’s focus on interacting subcultures and the social opportunities available to those capable of linguistic code switching. Chen’s story is extremely relevant to the current moment of throwaway culture, increasing income disparity, and technological advances progressing at such a rate that morality and ethics have trouble keeping up. Readers who crave gorgeous imagery and a thrilling narrative that also explicitly wrestles with big questions will be overjoyed. Agent: Eddie Schneider, JABberwocky Literary.

  • New Scientist A cracking science fiction novel by Chen Qiufan suggests humanity's future may be even stranger than its past
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    Bloomsbury Publishing
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Waste Tide
Chen Qiufan
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