Karin

I have just discovered your work – it is quite wonderful.
Best luck on your future endeavors

H

Let me know if there is anything you want me to correct. Also left a comment on Fei Dao’s blog so he can vet it too.

“In Sweden, do you have a lot of opportunities to communicate with ‘mainstream’ writers? Do they give mainstream awards to science fiction writers?” Meng Fei and I asked the lovely Swedish science fiction author Karin Tidbeck in broken English after the [Beijing] Bookworm International Book Festival talk was over and we were walking down the street. As she pushed open the door to the Guilin rice noodle shop she said. “There are times when I participate in events with mainstream writers, but I think a lot of them are really boring [so that’s why] I like hanging out with sci-fi author’s better. What you write influences the way you think, [so] people who write sci-fi have more in common to talk about.”

“Sometimes we will joke: people who write sci-fi often look a little bit younger [than other writers], so sci-fi can make people young.”As we talked I began to eat my thin and slippery noodles which were not in the least spicy.
“Yeah! That’s really true,” she said with mock seriousness, “Maybe all those strange and unusual thoughts help people stay young.”
“Perhaps imagination and curiosity help preserve [one’s] vitality.”
“I think when people stop thinking they start growing old.”

This was one of many happy topics we discussed tonight, as two people from other sides of the planet were able to meet because of science-fiction. This was the first time I was had talked to a fellow [sci-fi writer] from abroad. Before this, in my brain Sweden first and foremost meant _Pippy Longstocking_ and [Ingrid] Bergman, [Alfred] Nobel and his award with which the Chinese both love and hate. Later I did a search [and discovered that] many of the things that we have long used in our daily lives were created by the Swedes: Ericsson, Ikea, Volvo, Bluetooth technology, H&M, TetraPak …suddenly I found myself with a great deal of respect for this country with a population of less than 10 million people who were able to create all these things with a population half the size of Beijing.