20 best genre fiction writers from other countries to expand your horizons

The Three-Body Problem (Cover image via Macmillan)

9. Liu Cixin

China’s Cultural Revolution, the sociopolitical movement that lasted from 1966 to 1976, looms large in Liu Cixin’s work. In fact, it loomed large within Liu’s own life — his parents sent their young son away only a few years after his 1963 birth in an attempt to deliver him from the violence of the Cultural Revolution. Eventually, Liu attended the North China University of Water Conservancy and Electric Power, graduating in 1988. He began work as a computer engineer at a power plant, setting the stage for his ascent as one of the biggest names in modern science fiction.

Though he’s been publishing since the late 1990s, Liu is currently best known for his 2007 novel, The Three-Body Problem. It gained great traction in his native China, becoming even more well known when Chinese-American author Ken Liu translated the novel into English. The English version of The Three-Body Problem was published in 2014 by Tor Books.

The presidential recommendation

Liu’s book became so well-regarded that even then-President Barack Obama became a fan. In fact, Obama, himself an avid sci-fi and fantasy fan, called Liu’s book “wildly imaginative… The scope of it was immense. So that was fun to read, partly because my day-to-day problems with Congress seem fairly petty [in comparison]”.

So, what kind of book caught the attention of our first nerd president? The Three-Body Problem is indeed immense, both in scope and impact. It starts with the Cultural Revolution, when an astrophysicist named Ye Wenjie witnesses her father’s brutal death at the hands of the Red Guards. Ye eventually goes to work with a lumber crew in Inner Mongolia — it’s hard to get work otherwise when you’ve been branded a cultural traitor.

Eventually, however, she becomes embroiled with something far larger than the Cultural Revolution. She starts to work with Red Coast, China’s version of SETI, where she receives the first-ever communication from an alien world. Wenjie, who has become bitter and hateful towards humanity after her traumatic experiences, invites the aliens to leave their dying world and take over the Earth. Her actions have dramatic consequences for many generations to come. These include a cultural movement of her own and a dramatic, immersive video game that is more than it seems.