Ge Fei is the pen name of Liu Yong, who was born in Jiangsu Province in 1964. He graduated with a degree in Chinese from East China Normal University in Shanghai, and in 2000 received a PhD from Beijing’s Tsinghua University, where he has taught literature ever since. He first started publishing short stories during the 1980s and quickly established himself as one of the most prominent writers of experimental avant-garde fiction in China. Ge Fei’s scholarly publications include Kafka’s Pendulum and his fiction includes The Invisibility Cloak; the Jiangnan Trilogy, of which Peach Blossom Paradise is the first volume; and the novella Flock of Brown Birds. He was awarded the Lu Xun Literary Prize and the Mao Dun Literary Prize for Fiction.

(Photo credit: NYRB)