Qiu Xiaolong was born in Shanghai, China. He published prize-winning poetry, translation and criticism in Chinese in the ’80s, and became a member of the Chinese Writers’ Association. In 1988, he came to the United States as a Ford Foundation Fellow and obtained a PhD in comparative literature at Washington University. He is the author of the critically acclaimed, award-winning Inspector Chen series; a collection of linked stories Years of Red Dust (2010); three poetry translations, Treasury of Chinese Love Poems (2003), Evoking T'ang (2007) and 100 Classic Chinese Poems (2010); and his own poetry collections, Lines Around China (2003) and Poems of Inspector Chen (2016).