Xu Zechen

Xu Zechen

Xu Zechen was born in Northern China in 1978 and studied Chinese Language and Literature at Peking University. He is considered to be a leading member of China’s post-70’s generation of writers: his best-known works include the novels Jerusalem, The Deep Imperial City and Running Through Beijing, as well as a children’s book, Fairy Tale of the Green Clouds Valley. Jerusalem was awarded the Laoshe Literature Prize, the Feng Mu Prize for Literature, the Chinese Literature Media Award, the Annual Novelist Award, the Dream of Red Mansion Award in Hong Kong, the Jury Award, and the Tencent Academy Literature Award, and has sold 200,000 copies. The Imperial City was named Top Ten Chinese Novels of 2017 by Hong Kong Asia Weekly and “Top Ten Good Chinese Books of 2017” by Taiwan’s Mirror Weekly.   In 2019, echen was awarded the prestigious Mao Dun literary prize for his most recent novel, Northwards. He is currently deputy editor in chief of China’s most important literary magazine, People’s Literature.

Photo credit © Guo Bin