Ken Liu's the Grace of Kings, the first book of the Dandelion Dynasty series published in 2015. [Photo provided to China Daily]

The story focuses on their struggles between two cultures. Sensing the prejudice toward Asians, young Jack tried to sever himself from his Chinese heritage, so much so that he stopped talking to his mother until her premature death.

US writer and editor Geoff Hart says in his review of the story, that "the real magic lies in the simple, quintessential beauty of his characters (often Chinese) and how he can make us feel their pain, even if we're not Chinese."

Moving many readers, the story won the Hugo, Nebula and World Fantasy awards for best short story in 2012.

When Liu was planning his first novel, he made a list of his favorite stories he'd written.

"I noticed that there were consistent themes: cross-cultural identities, switching between different languages, societies and ways of thinking, dismantling a literary work in one frame of reference, and assembling the parts in another," he says.