For generations, most Chinese fiction in translation has come with an implicit asterisk, as if to say, ‘Understand this in its political context’. Fiction by writers who remain in China has to be read as a kind of cipher written to befuddle the censors. The proscriptions on portraying character complexity—all army officers are upstanding, all police brave—perversely pushes writers towards social commentary instead of individual stories. You may not see character depth in Yu Hua’s novels, for example, but stories of the indigent dead roaming modern cities because they can’t afford burial plots stir outrage about the plight of the poor in modern China.

The sixteen stories in the collection Broken Stars provide a holiday from such social outrage. There is a social context, of course, but they are not parable: they are just good science fiction, with no asterisk.

• Tags: Anne Stevenson-Yang, China, Issue 21, Ken Liu