The Three-Body Problem has been translated into English.

Science fiction is not real science, Liu makes that clear whenever he can. It inspires young readers' curiosity and sometimes offers a different kind of "death education", he says.

"You need to let children understand everybody will eventually die, and often science fiction tells them the earth is just like a human body, and has its life-span.

"It will teach them to respect Nature and the environment that we have. It also sparks their curiosity for outer-space, and whether other habitable environments may exist. "

Even though he has won a series of prizes for children's literature in China, he says that he has not written especially for young readers. "I won those prizes because the awards for sci-fi are often among the categories of 'children's literature' in China," he explains.

In the 1950s, all of China's science fiction was for children, but in recent years writers have developed a "child-phobia", he says. Everyone is afraid of connecting science fiction with children.