Gu Qian, born in Nanjing, China, in 1958, hails from Tongcheng, Anhui Province. After graduating from high school, Gu worked in various professions, including as a laborer, beekeeper, audiovisual market manager, newspaper advertising agent, magazine editor, and company employee. He began writing in the 1980s and published his first short story in 1985. At the age of 40, he resigned from his job to pursue writing full-time, writing novels and contributing columns to newspapers. Gu has published several collections of short stories, including Languishing, Hi, Long Time No See, Bits of News About a Woman, and A Casual Acquaintance, as well as novels such as Going Elsewhere and A Life of Drinking. His works have been reprinted in various literary anthologies. Gu has won the Zijinshan Novel Award, the Zijinshan Short Story Award, the Jinling Literature Award multiple times, and the Nanjing Literature and Arts Gold Award.