China's "torn generation"

State visions of a flourishing country are a lived reality in China. In contrast, Frederike Schneider-Vielsäcker analyzes the critical engagement with socio-political discourses in science fiction narratives of the Chinese post-80s generation (balinghou). She offers an unprecedented perspective on the aesthetics, poetics, and subversive qualities of Chinese science fiction, which reveal the lived realities of a generation of only children in urban China in the 21st century. At the same time, she illustrates the profound economic and social changes of this era, making visible a life beyond the "Chinese Dream.".