Ken Liu

Ken Liu may be the most important figure in the transmission of Chinese science fiction to English-language audiences — not only as a translator but as an author of award-winning short fiction and novels that themselves represent one of the highest achievements of contemporary SF. Born in Lanzhou, China, and raised in the United States, he holds degrees from Harvard in English, law, and computer science, a combination that gives his work an unusual intellectual range.

As a translator, his versions of Cixin Liu's Three-Body Problem trilogy and Hao Jingfang's Folding Beijing introduced global audiences to Chinese SF and won multiple Hugo Awards. As an author, his debut collection The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories (2016) won the Hugo, Nebula, and World Fantasy Awards simultaneously — a feat previously unaccomplished. His silkpunk epic fantasy duology, The Grace of Kings and The Wall of Storms, retells East Asian history through a fantastical lens of his own invention. He is a translator, author, programmer, and, clearly, a force of nature.