He is a professor of Nanjing University and the vice-president of Writers Association of Jiangsu Province. Graduating from the Faculty of Arts, Yangzhou University, in 1987, he began to write novels in the mid-1980s. His works have been translated into many languages and sold worldwide.

His representative works include That Boy is Me, The Moon Opera, The Plain, Panic Finger, and Massage. He once won Lu Xun Literature Prize for Short Stories, the 8th Mao Dun Literature Award, Red Eagle Award for Chinese Writers, Man Asian Literary Prize and People’s Literature Award.