Nie Jun was born in Qingdao in the province of Shandong in 1975. His interest in drawing started at a young age; before he began producing his own comics, he would reproduce paintings and drawings from traditional Chinese pocket picture books (Lianhuanhua) as well as international comic series. As a
Canadian writer Madeleine Thien was born in Vancouver, British Columbia, in 1974, the year her Chinese-Malaysian family immigrated to Canada. Pursuing her childhood interest in ballet, Thien studied modern dance at Simon Fraser University. From 1994 on she was a student at the University of British Columbia, where she received
Ma Jian was born in the harbour city of Qingdao in the Chinese province of Shandong in 1953. He worked in a chemicals factory, then moved to Beijing to work as a photojournalist for a state-owned magazine. Here he joined an experimental group of artists and organized secret exhibitions of
Ma Yuan was born in the People’s Republic of China in 1953. He studied Chinese at the Liaoning University in northeast China, and between 1982 and 1987 worked as a journalist in Tibet. In 1989 he returned to China, where he moved from city to city trying out jobs in
Liu Xun was born in 1974 in Nanjing. She learned artisan craftwork, worked as a designer and animator, and attended the Academy of Fine Arts. Many of her oil paintings have been awarded prizes at national exhibitions.After the birth of her daughter, she began writing and illustrating her own picture
Liao Yiwu was born in 1958 in China’s Sichuan Province. After secondary school he worked as a cook and a truck driver while intensively studying Western poetry and writing his first poems. In the 1980s he became one of China’s best-known young poets; however, after his work was published in
Leung Ping-kwan is Hong Kong’s most important writer. Following his studies in English and Chinese Literature in the seventies, he worked as a teacher, reporter, columnist and translator. In 1984 he received a doctorate in Comparative Literature from the University of San Diego in California. He works as a Professor
Jung Chang born in Yibin, China, in 1952 and studied English at Sichuan University. In 1978 she won a scholarship to England, where she obtained a PhD in Linguistics at the University of York in 1982. »Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China«, her account of the lives of her family
Liu Jing is a comic artist and entrepreneur from Beijing. He studied industrial design and engineering as well as international economics and trade at the Beijing University of Technology. Since 1997, he has been the managing director of the agency he founded, MOLI Design, which counts the BBC, UNICEF, and
Guojing (Jing Guo) was born in 1983 in the Chinese province of Shanxi. She became interested in art at the age of 9, and graduated from the Tianjin Academy of Fine Arts. She has subsequently worked as a concept artist in the games industry and for animated TV shows. Guojing
The son of an officer, Ha Jin was born Jin Xuefei in the northern Chinese town of Jinzhou in 1956. At the age of 14 during the Cultural Revolution, he joined the People’s Liberation Army and served along the Chinese-Soviet border. When the universities were re-opened in 1977, he studied
Gao Xingjian was born in Ganzhou, in the eastern Chinese province of Jiangxi, in 1940. He studied French Literature at the Beijing Institute of Foreign Languages. Shortly afterwards he was sent away for »re-education« during the Cultural Revolution, and was deployed among other things as a farm labourer and village
