Chinese writer Hai Ya's The Space-Time Painter won the Hugo Award for Best Novelette(中短篇小说) on Oct. 21st. He became the third Chinese writer to win a Hugo Award after Liu Cixin and Hao Jingfang.
When creating The Space-Time Painter, Hai Ya drew his idea from a famous painting, A Panorama of Rivers and Mountains(《千里江山图》). It was created by Wang Ximeng from the Song Dynasty. Based on Wang, Hai created a painter named Zhao Ximeng. After many hard times, Zhao's mind leaves his body and enters a space where a modern policeman is trying to solve a case(案件)about an ancient painting.
Hai Ya's story with science fiction began in his childhood. "When I was a child, the bookstore in my hometown helped create a beautiful garden in my mind that belonged to me only. In it, science fiction offered the most beautiful‘flowers'; it opened a new world for me as a kid," Hai Ya told Beijing Youth Daily.
Hai Ya's works feature a mix of history and science fiction. These two styles seem opposite: One looks back at the past, and the other faces the future. However, in Hai Ya's works, they find a perfect balance(平衡).
"If we can only imagine the future and things in space like rockets, it will only limit (限制) our imagination," Hai Ya told Shenzhen Special Zone Daily. "I don't think history is something completely in the past. It is flowing(流动的), and we can make predictions(预言) about the future by looking back at history.▲ ," he added.
More Chinese writers today are trying to mix traditional culture with modern stories. Hai Ya believes that it is not a choice but a natural process." Our history and culture have universal values(普世价值) that can touch everyone," he said to Xinhua.