Ken Liu
Ken Liu (born 1976) is a multiple Hugo Award-winning American author of science fiction and fantasy. His epic fantasy series "The Dandelion Dynasty", the first work in the "silkpunk" genre, is published by Simon & Schuster. His short stories have appeared in "F&SF", "Asimov's", "Analog", "Lightspeed", "Clarkesworld", and multiple "Year's Best" anthologies. Childhood and career. Liu was born in 1976 in Lanzhou, China. He spent his childhood with his grandparents. His mother, who received her Ph.D. in chemistry in the United States, is a pharmaceutical chemist, while his father is a computer engineer. The family immigrated  to the United States when Liu was 11 years old. They lived in California and Stonington, Connecticut before settling in Waterford, Connecticut. Liu graduated from Waterford High School in 1994, where he ran cross-country and track. At Harvard College, he studied English Literature and Computer Science, receiving his A. B. in 1998. After graduation, he worked as a software engineer for Microsoft, and then joined a start-up in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He later received his J.D. from Harvard Law School in 2004 and after working as a corporate lawyer, eventually became a high-tech litigation consultant. He began publishing  fiction in 2002. His first published work was "Carthaginian Rose", a short story on mind uploading which was published alongside nine other authors in "The Phobos Science Fiction Anthology Volume 1". Liu says he wanted to become a writer so he could make stories that “turn values upside down and inside out to gain new perspectives.” After a long career writing and publishing short fiction, Liu turned to epic fantasy novels, starting with "The Grace of Kings" in 2015. He has also written for the "Star Wars" universe, with "The Legends of Luke Skywalker" in 2017. Along with his original  work, Liu has translated the works of multiple Chinese authors into English, including Liu Cixin, Hao Jingfang, Chen Qiufan, and Xia Jia. His translation of "The Three Body Problem" by Liu Cixin helped the book become a best seller to English readers. He also has worked on editing works. While editing the anthology "Invisible Planets", Ken Liu translated the stories contained within it from Chinese into English. Some of Liu's work have been adapted into visual media. "Memories of My Mother," a short story, was the basis of "Beautiful Dreamer" by David Gaddie. "Real Artists," a short story, was  adapted into a short film by Cameo Wood. "Good Hunting," a short story, was adapted into an animated short as part of Netflix's "Love, Death & Robots" series in 2019. Liu's short story collection, “The Hidden Girl and Other Stories” published in 2020, explores ideas such as tradition and progress, the fallibility of memory, and the essence of what it means to be human. Liu now lives with his family near Boston, Massachusetts. Awards. Liu's short story "The Paper Menagerie" is the first work of fiction, of any length, to win all of the Nebula, Hugo, and World  Fantasy Awards. In addition, his short story, "Mono no aware" won the 2013 Hugo Award, and his novella "The Man Who Ended History: A Documentary" was also nominated for a Hugo. The first novel in his "The Dandelion Dynasty" series, "The Grace of Kings", was a 2016 Nebula Award finalist. The novel was the 2016 Locus Award Best First Novel winner. Besides his original work, Liu's translation of Liu Cixin's Chinese language novel "The Three-Body Problem" (the first in the "Remembrance of Earth's Past" trilogy) won the 2015 Hugo Award for Best Novel, making it the  first translated novel to have won the award. Liu also translated the third volume of the "Remembrance of Earth's Past" series, "Death's End," in 2016, which was a 2017 Hugo Award for Best Novel finalist. One of Liu’s short stories, “Thoughts and Prayers,” is a part of Jonathan Strahan’s The Year’s Best Science Fiction (2020), Vol 1. Original works. Upcoming novels and stories. The Veiled Throne, November 2, 2021. Speaking Bones April 2022 Liu's works in translation. Many of Liu's short stories have been translated into Chinese, Japanese, French, Spanish, and multiple other  languages and published in short stories collections: