American Nanjing Society Digital Knowledge Platform

AI-assisted draft, reviewed by Abka Suwaliyata Gvwalgiya on 2026-08-10.

Tianrui Shuofu

person · Nanjing relevance: 85/100

A science-fiction writer whose field research in Nanjing shaped the time-crossing city of the novel We Live in Nanjing.

Nanjing connection: Tianrui Shuofu researched Nanjing on location and made the city’s real coordinates central to the science-fiction novel We Live in Nanjing.

Key facts

  • Tianrui Shuofu is a science-fiction writer born in 1996.
  • A publisher profile says the writer studied biology at a university in Harbin and began writing while at university.
  • A 2023 publisher profile reported two Nanjing research trips; a December 2024 interview reported three, indicating an additional visit or a later correction.
  • The novel connects Nanjing in 2019 and 2040 through radio communication across time.

Why this matters to Nanjing

Tianrui Shuofu is a science-fiction writer whose novel We Live in Nanjing (《我们生活在南京》) uses the city as part of its narrative machinery rather than as a decorative setting. The story aligns Nanjing in 2019 with Nanjing in 2040: a high-school student named Bai Yang and a nineteen-year-old survivor named Banxia communicate by radio from the same geographic position across two different times [S2][S3].

This relationship belongs in the Nanjing knowledge network as writing after field research. The reviewed sources do not establish that Tianrui Shuofu was born in Nanjing, lived there long-term, worked there, or resides there now.

Nanjing connection

A 2023 publisher profile says Tianrui Shuofu visited Nanjing twice while preparing the novel, toured local landmarks, and asked friends about customs, speech, and food [S2]. A December 2024 interview reports three dedicated research trips and describes how the writer used maps, cycling, and proximity to water and hills to choose the novel’s principal address [S4]. The later count may reflect an additional trip or a correction; this page preserves the dates and wording of both accounts rather than forcing them into a single number. Another interview describes the writer as being from Jiujiang, Jiangxi, and records the writer’s own view that several research visits were not enough to write Nanjing fully without deeper experience of daily life [S1].

That limitation is important. The documented connection is not residence but a method: field research supplies the streets, distances, and ordinary urban details that allow the novel’s two versions of Nanjing to correspond. Critic Bei Qiao describes the book’s “time slow delivery” device as both technological and narrative, joining everyday life in 2019 to a ruined future in 2040 [S3].

Writer and work

Public profiles date Tianrui Shuofu’s birth to 1996 [S1][S2]. The publisher profile says the writer studied biology at an unnamed university in Harbin and began writing while at university; it identifies We Live in Nanjing as a major work alongside 《死在火星上》 [S2]. The sources reviewed here do not establish the writer’s birthplace, exact university, long-term residence, ordinary employment history, or current residence.

No published English edition of 《我们生活在南京》 was located in the research for ANJSO’s related article. This page therefore uses We Live in Nanjing as a descriptive English rendering, not as the verified title of an official English-language edition.

Sources

Editorial disclosure

Drafted with AI assistance from the cited sources. Factual review and publication require human approval by the American Nanjing Society.

Sources

License: Original ANJSO synthesis, CC BY 4.0; facts cited to sources

Related pages