The Village Teacher: Liu Cixin Graphic Novels #3

Liu Cixin is the most prolific and popular science fiction writer in China, as well as a senior engineer. For his grand narratives and superb imagination, Liu is recognized as a leading voice in Chinese science fiction. He is a multi-award winner with Hugo, Locus, Ignotus, Kurd-Laßwitz-Preis, Seiun Award and many others. He is also a nominee for the Nebula Award. In 2018, he received Arthur C. Clarke Award for Imagination in Service to Society.

Liu rose to international acclaim with his Three-Body Trilogy (The three-body problem, The Dark Forest, Death’s End), which was translated into English and published by Tor Books between 2014 - 2016. His novels received extensive coverage by international media outlets, including the New Yorker, New York Times, The Guardian, Spiegel, and El Mondo, and were highly praised by celebrities such as former U.S. President Barack Obama, Mark Zuckerberg, Kim Stanley Robinson, and George R.R. Martin. Since its initial publication, the Chinese edition of The Three-Body Trilogy has sold over 7,000,000 sets/21,000,000 copies. The series has been translated into twenty-six languages, including English, Spanish, German, French, Italian and Russian, and the sales of all foreign editions totaled 2,000,000 copies as of December 2019.

Since his writing debut in 1999, Liu has published over forty long- and short-form works of fiction, along with many non-fiction articles and critiques. He is a nine-time winner of the China Galaxy Award, and in 2015 earned the Xingyun Lifetime Achievement Award.

Zhang Xiaoyu was born in 1975 in Guizhou, China, and graduated from the Guizhou Art Institute in 1997, working as a graphic novel artist ever since. He is among the few artists creating Chinese graphic novel that has had international influence, making him one of the leading figures among young graphic novel artists.

From 1997 to 2005, he worked for the magazine Science Fiction World as editor, then head art supervisor, and finally chief editor. In 2005 he joined Beijing Total Vision Culture Spreads Co., Ltd. as a full-time graphic novel artist. Ten works of his own appeared in this period: Cross Soldier, Bloodline, Fly, Clown, Song of the Frogs, Saving Mankind, Savage Highway, Masheng’s Revenge, and Lanruo in the Clouds, as well as contributions to works like Casterman in Belgium, Glénat and Ankama in France, and Humanoids from the USA, all graphic works famous in Europe and America.

In 2001, his work Fly won first prize in the 3rd China Animation and Comic Competition. In 2005, his work Saving Mankind won top prize and for Best Script at the 5th CACC. In 2008, his work Clown won for best graphic novel at the seventh competition. In 2014, his representative works Lanruo in the Clouds (Le temple dans les nuage) and Masheng’s Revenge (La vengeance de masheng) appeared in China and France. The same year, he won the Prix du Public France 3 at the 38th Festival International de la Bande Dessinée de Chambéry, as well as a Gold prize for Golden Monkey King Award in comics at the 10th CICAF.

As an outstanding member of China’s graphic arts, Zhang Xiaoyu’s twenty years of artistic creation have helped revitalize original graphic art in China, and serve as a great contribution to the international expression and global dissemination of Chinese culture.