Readers from all over the world enjoyed reading "Folding Beijing" by Hao Jingfang. (Photo : Getty Images)
Brilliant writer Hao Jingfang held a book launching in Beijing recently. Her newly published Chinese-language books are "Drift in the Firmament," "Travel Afar" and "Deep in the Solitude," even the famous novelette, "Folding Beijing."
The mini-novel was translated in English in 2015 and was serialized in an online American magazine. The novelette was nominated for 2016 Hugo Best Novelette.
The famous novelette is about Lao Dao, a resident of the Third Space, the poorest section of the origami-like Beijing, who has to travel through different sectors to find money to pay for his child's kindergarten.
Hao, being a physics graduate and PhD in economics from Tsinghua University, used her understanding of social realities in the context of time and space travel in her writing. She also used her experience living in Beijing's outskirts.
"If you lower your head a bit," she said, "it would be impossible for you to miss the wide gaps in the seemingly equal world--some are living an unimaginable life under huge pressures."
Hao also got the support of Liu Cixin, the country's first Hugo awardee. Liu said that he admired Hao's "poetic" writing style put in a modern day context.
"Science fiction writing remains so small a circle that all the writers within it are familiar with each other," she said. "Liu was out of the limelight until he won the Hugo Award with 'The Three-Body Problem (Part I)'. There are still many others who have also been concentrating on their sci-fi writing without receiving much attention."
Hao is currently working on a new science fiction novel and a few short stories.
Announcement of the winners of the Hugo award will be in August, but the author said she does not want to preoccupy herself with it.
She said that too much attention might disrupt her normal life.
