Ma Jian was born in Qingdao, China, in 1953. He worked as a photographer for a petrochemical plant, then later moved to Beijing, where he joined the No Name Art Group and worked as a photojournalist for a state-run magazine.
At 30, he was targeted in a government campaign against "spiritual pollution," which drove him to give up his job and travel for three years across China—a journey he describes in his book Red Dust, which won the 2002 Thomas Cook Award for Travel Writing. After the Chinese government banned his books in 1987, he moved to Hong Kong. 10 years later, he moved to London, where he now lives.
He has written nine books, including novels, short-story collections, and essays, and has been published in 14 languages. His translated fiction includes The Noodle Maker, a satire of post-Tiananmen China, and Stick Out Your Tongue, a novella based on his travels through Tibet.
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