Success in the Hugo Awards is a breath of fresh air for a genre that many believe is only for children

Chinese writer Hao Jingfang was named the winner of this year's Hugo Award for best novelette on Aug 20 for her short science fiction story, Folding Beijing. Last year, the World Science Fiction Society gave the prestigious award to Liu Cixin, another Chinese author, for his novel, The Three-Body Problem.

Two Hugo awards in two years is a great achievement, especially as science fiction is not a genre in which Chinese writers excel. In fact, sci-fi writing has almost come to a halt in China.

Only four major sci-fi magazines are published in the country, with Science Fiction World being the most popular with a circulation of 300,000. That number may seem impressive, but actually it's small given China's population of 1.4 billion.

The American magazine Analog Science Fiction and Fact has a circulation of just over 100,000, and it's just one of many such magazines with similar circulation figures. Of course, the market for sci-fi is much bigger in the West.

Moreover, Chinese writers and their works are few in number. On the Amazon list of 10 best-selling Chinese-language sci-fi novels, The Three-Body Problem and Folding Beijing are the only ones by Chinese authors, with the rest being translations of foreign works.

The awkward situation sci-fi writers face in China has much to do with the past. For long, the genre was mixed with popular science reading materials, and its target readers were children. In fact, Ye Yonglie, one of the best sci-fi writers in the late 1980s and early 1990s, is popularly known as a writer of children's literature because his works are mostly for children. Many bookstores also keep science fiction works in the children's literature section.

Another factor hindering the development of sci-fi writing in China is a lack of support from related sectors. After The Martian was released in China in November, the novel by Andy Weir on which the movie is based became a best-seller. But seldom has any Chinese sci-fi work been made into a movie.

That's the reason why Liu and Hao deserve great praise for their efforts. By combining the real life with the imaginary, the two have infused a breath of fresh air into the genre and widened its readership to adults.

Hao's Folding Beijing depicts a city divided into three parts, where residents take turns to enjoy life, reminding readers of the widening social divide across the world. In Liu's The Three-Body Problem, a lack of trust between different races in the universe is similar to the one that afflicts people on Earth.

These works are science fiction, no doubt, but they raise many pertinent questions about human society and international relations.

That's the future Chinese sci-fi writers should look at - reflecting real life in imaginary worlds - to attract more readers.

Another positive trend in Chinese sci-fi works is the development of multiple products. A Chinese movie company bought the copyright of The Three-Body Problem last year and an adaptation is expected to hit the screens in 2017. In addition, a play based on the novel has been a huge success in Shanghai.

Such ventures should provide a fillip to sci-fi writers in China, and we hope the movie and play based on Liu's novel are just the start.

The author is a writer with China Daily. Contact the writer at zhangzhouxiang@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily European Weekly 09/02/2016 page12)