Hao Jingfang is the author of several novels, a book of travel essays, and numerous short stories published in a variety of venues such as Science Fiction World, Mengya, New Science Fiction, and ZUI Found. Her fiction has been awarded the Galaxy (Yinhe) Award as well as the Nebula (Xingyun) Award. She majored in physics at Tsinghua University as an undergraduate, and afterward conducted graduate studies at the Center for Astrophysics at Tsinghua. Hao recently obtained her Ph.D. in Economics and Management from Tsinghua and currently works for a think tank.
Hao does not limit herself to “genre” writing. Her latest novel, Born in 1984, for instance, would be considered a literary novel. Imaginative and precise, her stories are carefully designed on multiple levels. Her wide range of interests and literary approaches are reflected in the two selections for this anthology, “Invisible Planets,” a fabulist tale in the tradition of Italo Calvino, and “Folding Beijing,” a near-future, economics-based dystopia. Both stories can be read in many ways. “Folding Beijing” was a finalist for the Hugo Award and the Sturgeon Award.