Hao Jingfang Becomes First Chinese Female Author to Win Hugo Award, Beats Stephen King
After being nominated back in July, the 32-year-old Hao Jingfang won the Hugo Award for Best Novelette for her Folding Beijing yesterday, making her the first female Chinese author to do so.
It is the second time that a Chinese sci-fi author has won the Hugo Award, after Liu Cixin's The Three-Body Problem, the first part in the trilogy, took the award last year for Best Novel. Both Folding Beijing and The Three-Body Problem were translated by American writer and translator Ken Liu.
Prior to the awards, Hao said that she was looking forward to the ceremony, not because she might win the award but because she may have the opportunity to meet bestselling horror and fantasy author Stephen King, who was also nominated in the Best Novelette category for his Obits.
Folding Beijing only took Hao three days to write back in 2012. "My story suggests a possibility for the future and also proposes a solution ... In my story, the future is brighter than we thought, and I hope it is even better,” Hao said after receiving her award at the Kansas City Convention Center Grand Ballroom. You can see her acceptance speech in full below:
