Chinese writers of science fiction deserve greater praise

On Aug 20, Chinese writer Hao Jingfang was declared the winner of this year's Hugo Award for Best Novelette for her short science fiction, Folding Beijing. Last year, the Los Angeles-based World Science Fiction Society had bestowed the Hugo Award for Best Novel to another Chinese writer, Liu Cixin, for The Three Body Problem.

Two Hugo awards in two years is by any means a great achievement because science fiction is not a genre in which Chinese writers excel. In fact, science fiction writing has almost come to a halt in China.

Only four major science fiction 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 is small given China's population of 1.4 billion. Besides, the combined circulation of the other three magazines is so small that only a few people have heard of them.