Liu Cixin is a Chinese computer engineer and science fiction writer. He is a nine-time winner of the Galaxy Award (China's most prestigious literary science fiction award) and winner of The Hugo Award for his novel The Three-Body Problem.
Liu Cixin was born in Beijing. He was raised in Yangquan because his parents had to relocate to work in the mines there. Due to the upheaval of the Cultural Revolution, he was later sent to live in his family's ancestral home in Luoshan County, Henan.
In 1988, Liu completed his education at the North China University of Water Conservancy and Electric Power. He pursued a career as a computer engineer at a power plant located in Shanxi province.
Liu's literary influences include English authors George Orwell and Arthur C. Clarke. He gained recognition as the first cyberpunk Chinese author when his novel China 2185 came out in 1989.
However, Liu's most notable and internationally acclaimed work is The Three-Body Problem (2006), the first installment of the Remembrance of Earth's Past trilogy.
This novel garnered widespread attention and acclaim, especially after American author Ken Liu's translation received the prestigious 2015 Hugo Award for Best Novel. Liu Cixin thus became the first Asian author to receive this honor. The German translation, which included additional content not present in the English version, followed in 2016.
Liu's fiction delves into critical themes such as social inequality, scientific progress, and ecological challenges that impact humanity.
A cinematic adaptation of The Three-Body Problem was in the works, but its release was postponed, sparking speculation and negotiations with Amazon. Nevertheless, YooZoo Pictures maintained ownership of the adaptation rights.
Liu's short story The Wandering Earth received a cinematic adaptation that was released in China in 2019, becoming a success at the Chinese box office.
Furthermore, his science fiction The Rural Teacher was adapted into the science-fiction comedy Crazy Alien, which achieved significant box office success.
In September 2020, Netflix announced plans for an English-language series based on Liu's trilogy The Three-Body Problem, with Liu serving as a consulting producer. The project involved notable figures such as David Benioff, D.B. Weiss, Rian Johnson, and Rosamund Pike.
In 2024, the television adaptation premiered on Netflix, directed by the creators of Game of Thrones. This series, based on the first book of Liu's Remembrance of Earth's Past trilogy, brought his intricate narrative of alien contact to a global audience. As a result, the novel's popularity was restored and it returned to the bestseller charts.
Liu Cixin lives in China.
