Hong Ke (紅柯) is the pen-name of Yang Hongke, who was born in a village in northwest China’s Shaanxi Province in 1962. After graduating from college in 1985, he lived in Kuytun, Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region and later moved to Baoji City in Shaanxi. He now works at Shaanxi Normal University.
Hong Ke has spent ten years traveling along the Tianshan Mountains in Xinjiang. His major works include long novels "The Rider Who Has Gone West," "Big River," "Urho" and "The Tree of Life;" his novellas and short stories include "Riding Horse on the Tianshan Mountains," "Golden Pasture," "Sun Sprouts" and "The Waves of IrtySh River;" and his absurdist novels are "Edou" and "It’s Hard to Be Good."
Hong Ke has won several literature awards, including the Feng Mu Literature Prize, the Lu Xun Literature Prize, the Chuang Chung-Wen Literature Award, the Fiction Academy Award and the Shaanxi Arts Prize.