Bi Feiyu is often described as China's best male writer on the female psyche.
Tibetan writer Tsering Norbu, born and raised in Lhasa, weaves the mesmerizing world of religion and death in Tibet into his stories.
Xi Chuan, one of the most influential poets in contemporary China, has been known since his college days in the mid and late 1980s.
Xu Zechen is generally considered one of the burgeoning new stars in China's literary scene.
Zhang Yueran is the representative - and probably most famous - Chinese writer born in the 1980s.
Sheng Keyi is rising as a new force not to be ignored because of her powerful - often called "brutally real" - storytelling.
Yang Hongying, as a children's book writer, is known for her best-seller status both in China and overseas.
Liu Zhenyun is one of the latest Maodun Prize winners for his epic A Word is Worth Thousands.
Liu Cixin, eight-time winner of the Galaxy Award, is widely acknowledged as the face of China's sci-fi writing.
Li Er is a writer's writer, whose novels are replete with inter-textual references to 20th-century modernists of the western cannon even as he doffs his cap to Qing (1644-1911)-era fictional styles.
Mo Yan, arguably China's most-watched writer, explores the moral dilemmas around its famed one-child policy (that reportedly saved the world an additional burden of 450 million people) with great sensitivity in his last novel, Frog.
Tie Ning, re-elected the chair of the 5,000-strong Chinese Writers' Association last November, is the author of more than 50 publications.