Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information. Born in Fujian (South China) in 1967, Zhu Wen graduated from Nanjing University in 1989. From 1989 to 1994 he worked as an engineer in a thermal power plant, during which time he began writing fiction. Since he became a full-time writer in 1994, his work has been published in many of Mainland China's most prestigious literary magazines, and he has produced several poetry and short story collections, a full-length novel and three films. Over the course of his writing career, Zhu Wen has established himself as a pivotal figure in Post-Mao Chinese literature, to whom other authors of his and younger generations look for inspiration. His success in recreating on the page the brutal absurdities of contemporary China has turned him into a representative voice of the 1990s and beyond.