The Wormhole follows a young reporter who travels through a mysterious wormhole near Jupiter and becomes caught in a dangerous conflict between two vastly different civilizations. Where did the idea behind this novel come from?

Do you know how Doritos are made? I don’t, and yet when I’m at a barbecue, I grab a cheese-powdered handful. I can guess, but I don’t know exactly where they’re packaged or what ingredients are put in. All I know is they taste delicious. There are many products we treat this way: cell phones, lipstick, bratwurst. Yet many of them have a sinister side we may not know about or choose to ignore. The Wormhole tackles that dilemma.

Why was journalism the right profession for Zhang?

Good journalists have a natural curiosity and skepticism about them that works well for a protagonist. Journalism has the ability to reveal truths. It’s a job people want to have. It can get people into areas that are off-limits to the general public. In a post-scarcity society like Zhang’s, where people can choose their occupation, I have a hard time imagining people lining up to be health insurance actuaries.

Did you see Atlas as a villain from the beginning, or did his character become more complicated as you wrote him?

I wanted Atlas to be a complicated antagonist, or at least an everyday one. In some ways, he is each of us: aware of an uncomfortable truth but willing to ignore it because the status quo suits him. Doing an antagonist’s point of view means justifying his actions to the reader. I want the reader to identify with Atlas at some points. Maybe some readers agree with him at the end.

If readers could take away one idea about personhood, technology, or colonialism from the novel, what would you want it to be?

“Where does the tofu come from?” The tofu fuels the fabricator, which fuels modern life. What is the tofu in your life? Are there some unpleasant truths we’d rather not think about when it comes to hamburgers?

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