Science fiction is the business of imagining the future, but reading Han Song, one of China’s leading writers of the genre, can sometimes feel like reading recent history.

科幻小说是构想未来的工作，但阅读中国的科幻领军人物韩松的作品，有时会感觉像是在阅读近代史。

In 2000, he wrote a novel depicting the collapse of the World Trade Center. In 2016, another book imagined the world transformed into a giant hospital, with doctors taking people from their homes — as would happen at times during China’s coronavirus years.

2000年，他创作了一部描绘世贸中心倒塌的小说；2016年，另一部作品想象世界变成一座巨型医院，医生将人们从家中带走——这与中国新冠疫情期间的某些情况如出一辙。

For Mr. Han, 59, this means only that he had not gone far enough in imagining how dark or strange modern life could become.

对59岁的韩松而言，这仅意味着他在想象现代生活能有多黑暗或多奇异时，还不够大胆。

“I thought I was just writing, but that it was impossible for it to happen,” he said of his novel “Hospital,” in which everyone is reduced to being a patient. “It actually happened just a few years later,” he said, referring to the pandemic. “This is an example of reality being more science fiction than science fiction.”

“当时我就这么写而已，我认为这个是不可能发生的，”他在谈及小说《医院》时说，书中所有人都沦为病人。“实际情况就发生了，几年之后，”他指的是疫情，“这也是现实比科幻更科幻的一个（例子）。”

How the unthinkable can become reality has been Mr. Han’s subject for the past four decades. By day, he is a journalist at China’s state news agency, recording the country’s astonishing modernization. At night, he writes fiction to grapple with how disorienting that change can be.

过去四十年里，“不可想象之事如何成为现实”一直是韩松的创作主题。白天，他是中国国家通讯社的记者，记录着这个国家惊人的现代化进程；夜晚，他通过小说探索这种变革带来的迷茫。

His stories are bleak, grotesque and graphic. Some scrutinize the gap between China and the West, as in “The Passengers and the Creator,” a short story in which Chinese people worship a mysterious god called Boeing. Others imagine that China has displaced the United States as the world’s leading superpower. Many take ordinary settings, like subway trains, as backdrops for wild scenes of cannibalism or orgies.

他的故事凄冷、怪诞，画面感强烈：有些作品审视中西差距，如短篇《乘客与创造者》中，中国人崇拜名为“波音”的神秘神祇；还有一些设想中国取代美国成为世界超级大国；更多故事以地铁等日常场景为背景，上演食人或狂欢的荒诞情节。

3月，北京的一场科幻小说活动上展示了韩松的“医院三部曲”之一《驱魔》。

Supposed progress is always viewed warily. After China surpasses the United States in his novel “2066: Red Star over America” — the one with the collapse of the World Trade Center — it is not long before China, too, begins unraveling.

在他的小说《2066：红星照耀美国》（其中包含世贸中心倒塌的情节）里，中国超越美国后不久，自身也开始分崩离析——他对所谓的“进步”始终持警惕态度。

Classic sci-fi elements such as space travel or artificial intelligence appear, but the science is not Mr. Han’s focus. He is more interested in how people respond to new technologies and the power and disruption they represent.

太空旅行、人工智能等经典科幻元素虽有出现，但科学并非韩松的核心关注点。他更感兴趣的是人们如何应对新技术，以及技术所代表的权力与颠覆。

He has said that Chinese science fiction, more than other contemporary genres, is preoccupied with exploring pain.

他曾表示，中国科幻比其他当代文学类型更执着于探索痛苦。

That interest is also personal. Sickly from a young age, Mr. Han has in recent years seen a sharp deterioration in his health. This, he said, has made him more skeptical about the ability of medicine, and science generally, to improve humanity.

这种关注也源于个人经历：韩松自幼体弱，近年健康状况急剧恶化。他说，这让他对医学乃至科学改善人类的能力更加怀疑。

That is a potentially risky position, Mr. Han acknowledged in an interview in Beijing, where he lives with his wife. He is thin and soft-spoken, with a serious demeanor that belies the dark humor in his work.

韩松在北京——他和妻子生活在这座城市——接受采访时承认，这种立场可能存在风险。他身形消瘦、说话温和，严肃的举止与作品中的黑色幽默形成反差。

“According to our standards, there is only one possible future. It’s all planned: what 2035 will be like, what will 2050 be like, all the way until we reach peak socialism,” he said, referring to the Chinese government’s five-year plans for development. “But in science fiction, there are too many possibilities.”

“按照我们的标准，它就是一条路，按照设计好了，2035年是什么？2050年是什么？最后就到到社会主义的高级阶段、共产主义，”他指的是中国政府的五年发展规划，“但科幻里面的可能性就太多了。”

The Chinese government has promoted science fiction as a reflection of the country’s technological advancement and its global influence. Xi Jinping, China’s leader, is a fan of Jules Verne, the French author of classics like “Journey to the Center of the Earth.”

中国政府将科幻视为国家科技进步与全球影响力的体现。中国领导人习近平喜爱写了《地心游记》等名作的法国作家儒勒·凡尔纳。

The state film administration has pledged to support sci-fi films as a source of soft power; arguably China’s most successful cultural export in recent years is Liu Cixin’s novel “The Three-Body Problem,” which was adapted into a Netflix series.

国家电影局已承诺支持科幻电影作为软实力来源；近年来中国最成功的文化输出或许是刘慈欣的《三体》，该书已被改编为Netflix剧集。

3月，在北京一家书店举办的科幻小说活动上，韩松为读者签名。

Mr. Han’s writing aligns more with an earlier vision of science fiction’s role in China. In the early 20th century, when Chinese intellectuals began translating Verne, they wanted the stories to reveal the country’s weaknesses, to inspire reform.

韩松的写作更贴近过去的中国科幻的定位。20世纪初，中国知识分子开始翻译凡尔纳作品时，希望借故事揭示国家弱点、推动改革。

Mr. Han is no dissident. He has won China’s top science fiction awards and led its national science fiction association. And he is a high-ranking journalist at Xinhua, the state news agency, which never portrays China’s accomplishments as anything but thrilling and inevitable.

韩松并非异议人士：他曾获得中国科幻最高荣誉，领导全国科幻协会，同时还是新华社的高级记者——而新华社始终用激越的语调描绘着中国的成就，视其为必然。

The contradiction may be explained by the more open era in which Mr. Han began writing.

这种矛盾或许可以用韩松开始写作时那个开放的时代来解释。

He was born in the southwestern city of Chongqing during the Cultural Revolution, the 10 years of populist bloodshed unleashed by Mao Zedong. Scientific expertise was demonized as bourgeois, and universities shuttered. But after Mao died, China’s new leaders pledged to embrace modernization. Mr. Han’s father, a journalist, brought home science magazines and books such as “One Hundred Thousand Whys,” a popular science series for children. The young Mr. Han was fascinated.

他出生于文革期间的西南城市重庆——那是毛泽东发动的十年民粹主义动荡时期，科学知识被斥为资产阶级产物，大学停课。但毛泽东去世后，中国新领导人承诺拥抱现代化。韩松的父亲是一名记者，常带回家一些科学杂志和《十万个为什么》等儿童科普读物，年少的韩松为之着迷。

At university, he studied English and journalism, reading Western novels like “Slaughterhouse Five” and “Gravity’s Rainbow,” while taking science electives. He published his first novel in 1991, the same year that he started at Xinhua. Mr. Han said his bosses supported his personal writing, and some were sci-fi fans themselves.

大学期间，他主修英语和新闻，阅读《第五号屠宰场》《万有引力之虹》等西方小说，同时选修了科学课程。1991年，他发表首部小说，同年入职新华社。韩松称，上司支持他的个人创作，有些甚至本身就是科幻迷。

Science fiction’s niche status at the time also allowed writers to push the censors’ boundaries. Many new works were laced with social commentary.

当时科幻文学的小众地位也让作家得以挑战审查边界，许多新作都暗含社会评论。

Mr. Han’s particular style may also be key. Rather than making clear political statements, many of his works evoke a deep ambivalence about China’s place in the world.

韩松独特的风格或许是关键：他的许多作品并非直白的政治宣言，而是对中国在世界中的位置流露出深刻的矛盾。

中国科幻已成为文化自豪感的来源。图为韩松出席一场以刘慈欣小说《三体》命名的白酒发布会活动。

One story, “My Country Doesn’t Dream,” initially seems an indictment of China’s at-any-cost drive for development, which raised living standards but fueled corruption and other social problems. The protagonist, Xiao Ji, learns from an American spy that the Chinese government has devised a technology to make people work in their sleep.

短篇《我的祖国不做梦》初看像是对中国不惜一切代价推动发展模式的控诉——这种发展虽提升了生活水平，却助长了腐败等社会问题。主人公小纪从一名美国间谍口中得知，中国政府研发了让人们在睡梦中工作的技术。

But even as Xiao Ji reels, he is put off by the American’s sense of superiority: “He felt somewhat disgusted with this foreigner who was so set on revealing the truth to him. He suspected the man of harboring an ulterior motive.”

在感到震惊的同时，小纪又被美国人的优越感激怒：“不知怎么的，他很有些讨厌这个迫不及待向他抖露真相的外国人。他怀疑这家伙怀有不可告人的目的。”

Michael Berry, who has translated several of Mr. Han’s books into English, said there were always multiple interpretations in the writing.

将韩松多部作品译为英文的学者白睿文(Michael Berry)表示，其文字总是有多重的解读空间。

“He makes you realize the humanity in the other — and the inhumanity,” said Mr. Berry, a professor of contemporary Chinese cultural studies at the University of California, Los Angeles. “Maybe more the latter, because I think a lot of what he is doing is exploring this darker side of human nature.”

“他让你看到‘他者’的人性——以及非人性，”这位加州大学洛杉矶分校当代中国文化研究教授说，“或许后者更多，因为我认为他的许多创作都在探索人性的黑暗面。”

Mr. Han estimates that about half of his writing has not been published in China because of censorship. That includes “My Country Doesn’t Dream,” though it has circulated widely online.

韩松估计自己约有半数作品因审查未能在中国出版，包括已在网络广泛流传的《我的祖国不做梦》。

Lately, Mr. Han has turned his writing focus inward: to his own body.

近来，韩松将创作焦点转向自身：关注自己的身体。

On Weibo, a social media platform where he has more than 1 million followers, Mr. Han has spent the last few years sharing, in unsparing detail, the onset of dementia and other ailments. Alongside photos of books he reads or meals he eats, he describes forgetting who he was riding on the subway to meet, or losing control of his bladder.

在拥有超百万粉丝的微博上，过去几年他毫不避讳地分享失智症及其他疾病的发作细节。除了晒出阅读的书籍或餐食照片，他还描述在地铁上忘记要去见谁，或是大小便失禁的经历。

3月，在北京一家书店的活动上，韩松与其他作家在一起。

He treats his own decline with the same psychological interest he views his characters. After braving the cold to buy food, then feeling worn down, he mused: “People are always like this, selling out their bodies and souls just for a bite.”

他对自己的衰退怀着一种心理学兴趣，仿佛自己是书中的人物。有一次他顶着严寒外出购买食物，这让他疲惫不堪，于是他想：“人类总是这样，为吃一口饭出卖身体和灵魂。”

Mr. Han said he saw Weibo as a way to keep writing when creating fiction had become too tiring. He has also been experimenting with DeepSeek, the Chinese A.I. chatbot, to help him polish drafts or even write stories. He was dispirited that it sometimes produced better stories than he did. But he now has embraced it as a tool — just as the human brain was merely a tool, he said, that itself could need sharpening.

韩松称，当创作小说变得过于疲惫时，微博成了他坚持写作的方式。他还尝试用中国AI聊天机器人DeepSeek润色书稿甚至创作故事——有时AI写出的故事比他的更好，这让他有些沮丧。但现在他乐于将它作为一种工具。正如人脑只是工具，本身也需要磨砺，他说。

If human frailty is a common theme of Mr. Han’s writing, so is something slightly more optimistic: the value of writing about it.

若人类的脆弱是韩松写作的常见主题，那么还有一个稍显乐观的内核：对这种脆弱的书写本身的价值。

Starting in 2015, Mr. Han began posting on Weibo about a mysterious seven-year countdown. Fans guessed that at the end he might announce a new novel, or retire.

从2015年起，韩松开始在微博发布神秘的“七年倒计时”。粉丝猜测倒计时结束时，他可能宣布新作或退休。

In 2022, Mr. Han finally explained that he had years earlier visited a fortuneteller, who predicted his fate only until that year.

2022年，韩松终于给出了解释：多年前他曾拜访算命先生，对方对他的命运的预言止于这一年。

Now that his health had deteriorated seemingly along with the countdown, he wrote, he was unsure if that proved the existence of fate, or of hidden scientific laws.

如今，随着倒计时结束，他的健康也似乎每况愈下。他写道，不确定这是证明了命运的存在，还是有什么不为人知的科学法则。

“Of course, there are no convincing answers, nor is there any way to verify them in a laboratory,” he wrote. “Since one day my memory really may disappear, I just want to write this all down. As a reminder for myself, and for anyone interested in studying it.”

“当然这些都没有令人信服的答案，也无法在实验室重复，”他写道，“因为说不定记忆哪天真的消失了，就把这些先写下来，给自己备忘，也供感兴趣的人研究。”

3月，韩松在北京。人类的脆弱是他写作的一个主题，而他自己也面临健康每况愈下的问题。