From “Dark Forest” to “Community with a Shared Future for Mankind”: A Study of National Image Narration in the Overseas Dissemination of The Three-Body Problem

Abstract

Since the successful overseas publication of Liu Cixin's science fiction trilogy The Three-Body Problem, it has not only become a globally popular sensation but has also provided an important and unique window for the world to understand China. This paper adopts the Cultural Discourse Studies paradigm to examine how discourse "constructs" social reality, power relations, and cultural identification. It analyzes how the internal textual narrative and external discursive dissemination of the work collectively "tell" a complex, multifaceted contemporary Chinese national image distinct from Western perspectives. The paper reveals that the enormous overseas resonance of The Three-Body Problem stems from a journey of textual negotiation and contestation involving multiple discursive actors, including the author, translator, publishers, Chinese and foreign journalists, and global readers. Regarding specific discursive content, The Three-Body Problem engages in rich imagination concerning historical reflection, technological advancement, the "whole-nation system," and, most notably, international relations modeled on the "Dark Forest" theory. It offers philosophical speculations on China's future development and ultimately concludes its "Three-Body" journey with the existential puzzle of the "Dark Forest" facing all of humanity and the grand love and warmth of building a community with a shared future. Within the unique context of China's history and culture, and through encounters with cultures that interpret things differently, these narratives either generate strong "empathy" through certain universal "human" issues, or, because of the unique imagination of "Chinese-style modernization" itself, trigger new desires to understand China, thus giving rise to many new narratives about China. This paper explores how outstanding literary works can promote national image dissemination and hopes to provide beneficial artistic methods and communication models for the construction of Chinese discourse and narrative systems.