Six authors in search of the 'body'

"In traditional cyberpunk novels, the body is often simplified to 'replaceable prosthetics' or 'uploadable consciousness', whereas these female authors return the body to concrete experiences: menstruation, childbirth, pain, nurturing, touching and mourning. These experiences are no longer objects to be observed but become the engine of the narrative," Ren says.

Once a term burdened with voyeurism and objectification, "body writing" is now being redefined by these writers as a distinctly 21st-century form, Wang says.

Instead of imagining escape from the "prison" of the body, they confront it directly, exploring coexistence with human limitations in the AI era.

In these stories, Kim Cho-yeop's main character who has lost her physical form yearns to be stung by bees; Kim Chung-gyul's robot would rather die with a human body; Cheon Seon-ran views the sensation of pain as a declaration of freedom; Wang transforms "women's pain "into a force driving AI evolution.

"In my relatively short life of over 30 years, I have clearly felt that society's view of women now is vastly different from decades ago. Therefore, female writers can understand that the current notions of 'humanity' and 'human nature' are not absolute but rather fluid, changing with the world," Kim Cho-yeop says.

"Science fiction is a literary genre that expresses 'world change', so I feel that works by female sci-fi writers often do not adhere to established definitions, but are more open," she adds.

Ji Shaoting, the founder and CEO of the Future Affairs Administration, notes that in recent years, female expression has become a new driving force in the film and television market. In the future, women's life experiences told by female creators will also become a growth point in the content industry.

"After so many years in the sci-fi industry, the novelty it brings me is diminishing, but I see something new in female writers," she says. "They bring vitality and freshness to a genre that has existed for 200 years since Mary Shelley wrote the first sci-fi novel Frankenstein, allowing the body to be written from different perspectives. It makes me feel that this 'monster' of sci-fi, which has lived for hundreds of years, is still growing."