Literary Birthday – 23 June – Liu Cixin

Happy Birthday, Liu Cixin, born on 23 June 1963.

Liu Cixin Quotes

1. I do think that science fiction ideas are best expressed through visual media like film and TV. Realist literature depicts things that we have seen in life, but science fiction is different: what it depicts exists only in the author’s imagination. When it comes to science fiction, the written word is inadequate.
2. I did not begin writing for love of literature. I did so for love of science.
3. The three-body problem is a term borrowed from physics. It is a phenomenon that can basically be explained like this: Two objects in space can interact in a predictable fashion rotating around each other due to their gravitational pull. But if a third object is introduced, it makes their interaction more complicated.
4. In the century-long history of Chinese science fiction, apocalyptic themes were mostly absent. This was especially true in the period before the 1990s, when Chinese science fiction, isolated from the influence of the West, developed on its own.
5. A bright future may be what humanity aspires to achieve but it’s far easier to talk about conflicts that play out in dark and pessimistic settings.
6. Sci-fi novels are concerned with problems faced by all of humanity. Crises in sci-fi mostly threaten humanity as a whole. This is a unique and treasurable trait inherent in the genre – that the human race is perceived as a single entity, undivided.
7. I’m a writer. I don’t begin with some conceit in mind. I’m just trying to tell a good story.

Source for quotes: BrainyQuote

Liu Cixin is the most popular and prolific Chinese science fiction author. His work falls into the hard or mundane science fiction genre. His works deal with the impact of imagined or actual science on societies and individuals. He is celebrated for his Remembrance of Earth’s Past series. The first book, The Three-Body Problem, won the 2015 Hugo Award and sold over three million English copies and 30 million worldwide. In addition, Liu has published the story collections To Hold Up the Sky (2020) and The Wandering Earth (2021) as well as several standalone novels. In 2019, The Wandering Earth was adapted into a film and made more than 4.6 billion yuan ($675 million) at the box office. A film prequel was released in 2023 and earned more than $600 million worldwide. His early influences included Jules Verne, Arthur C. Clarke, and George Orwell. He is also an eight-time winner of the Galaxy Award (the Chinese Hugo) and a winner of the Chinese Nebula Award.

Source for photograph: Henry Söderlund, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

by Amanda Patterson
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