$1.25 million! "The Three-Body Problem" set a new record for copyright output

China Education Books Import and Export Co., Ltd., the operator of the foreign language edition of the science fiction "Three-Body" trilogy, recently announced that it has recently completed the copyright renewal of the English version of the trilogy with Tor Books, the world's largest fantasy literature publishing house and a subsidiary of Macmillan Publishing Company, with a renewal amount of up to 1.25 million US dollars (nearly 8 million yuan), which has created a new record for overseas copyright exports of Chinese literary works.

According to reports, Thor Books, which signed the English version of "The Three-Body Problem", was founded in 1980 and is the publishing house in the dream of the world's top science fiction writers. In view of the fermenting influence and growing fan base of "Three-Body" and Liu Cixin in the English-speaking world, the agency renewed the contract early and offered a high price of $1.25 million. Since the establishment of Thor Books Publishing House, no more than 5 writers have paid more than one million dollars in prepaid royalties, and Liu Cixin is one of them.

Created by the famous Chinese science fiction writer Liu Cixin, "Three-Body" contains three novels: "Three-Body", "Dark Forest" and "Death Immortality", which is known as a milestone work of Chinese science fiction literature.

In 2012, Liu Cixin joined hands with China Jiaotu Company to carry out in-depth cooperation on the foreign language version of the "Three-Body" trilogy.

On November 11, 2014, the English version of "Three-Body Problem" was officially published and distributed by the translation and promotion of China Jiaotu Company. So far, the work has been exported in more than 30 languages, and the cumulative sales of foreign language editions have exceeded 3.3 million copies.

In 2015, "The Three-Body Problem" won the Hugo Award for Best Novel, and Liu Cixin became the first Asian writer to win the award.

In addition, since 2015, the language versions of "The Three-Body Problem" have been continuously nominated for science fiction awards in various countries around the world, and the highest science fiction awards in the United States, Germany, Spain, Japan, Estonia and other countries have been included one by one, and in some countries they have won awards for many years.

In 2020, Netflix, the world's largest streaming site, announced that it will produce "Three-Body" episodes, and the global influence of "Three-Body" is continuing to ferment.

Text/Beijing Youth Daily reporter Zu Weiwei

Editor/Cui Wei