Waste Tide

Award-winning author Chen Qiufan's Waste Tide is a thought-provoking future vision of how climate change affects the world.

Translated by Ken Liu, who brought Cixin Liu's Hugo Award-winning The Three Body Problem to English-speaking listeners.

Mimi is a 'waste girl.’ A member of the lowest caste on Silicon Isle, located off China’s southeastern coast, and home to the world’s largest electronic waste recycling center. There, thousands of miles from home, Mimi struggles to earn a living for her family and dreams of a better life.

Luo Jincheng is the head of one of three clans who run the island, a role passed down from his father and grandfather before him. As the government enforces tighter restrictions, Luo in turn tightens the reins on the waste workers in his employ. Ruthlessness is his means of survival.

Scott Brandle has come to Silicon Isle representing TerraGreen Recycling, an American corporation that stands to earn ungodly sums if they can reach a deal to modernize the island’s recycling process.

Chen Kaizong, a Chinese American, travels to Silicon Isle as Scott’s interpreter. There, Kaizong is hoping to find his heritage, but finds only more questions. The home he longs for may not exist.

As these forces collide, a dark futuristic virus is unleashed on the island. Against the backdrop of a gritty near-future Chinese landscape, in a world of body modifications and virtual reality, a war erupts -- between the rich and the poor; between ancient traditions and modern ambition; between humanity’s past and its future.

Chen Qiufan is an award-winning science fiction writer. He grew up near Guiyu, China, home to the world’s largest e-waste recycling center, an area the UN called an “environmental calamity.” His experiences there inspired the Waste Tide. He currently lives in Shanghai and Beijing and works as the founder of Thema Mundi Studio.

Ken Liu (translator) is the author of The Grace of Kings and The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories.