Alai ཨ་ལེ་ 阿来 (born 1959) is an ethnically Tibetan author born in an autonomous prefecture in the Northwest of China’s Sichuan province. He formerly worked as an editor of the Science Fiction World magazine and was a resident writer at the University of Iowa’s International Writing Program in 2013. In 2024, he became the director of the Ethnic Minorities Literature Committee as part of the China Writers’ Association.

He is a writer of essays, poetry, short stories, and novels. His notable works include the poetry collection Lengmo River, the novella Mushroom Circle, which won the Lu Xun Literary prize in 2018, and the essay collection The Ladder of the Earth. The Last of the Chieftains, first published in 1998, received the Mao Dun Literary Prize in 2000, making him the first Tibetan writer to win the award.