Flying high with prestigious award

In 1992, 23-year-old migrant worker Wang Jibing returned to his hometown of Wangzhuang village in Xuzhou, Jiangsu province, and collected sand from the Yihe River behind the village for a living. He suffered immensely both physically and spiritually during this period, which he calls "the hardest time of the first half of his life". However, it was also what inspired him to begin writing.

After publishing several stories, he began his first novel, aspiring to become a professional writer. He wrote tirelessly. At one point, to experience the grief of losing a loved one, he walked around the village wearing mourning clothes, which completely infuriated his father. That winter, his father burned all his manuscripts, including the 200,000-character novel.

Over the next two decades, Wang, who had dropped out of junior middle school, worked various jobs: driving a small dump truck in a brick factory, handling loading and unloading, physical dock labor, collecting and selling scrap materials, and running first a bookstore, then a grocery. In his fragmented free time, Wang continued to write on paper, which, once filled with words, would be immediately thrown away or burned until 2009.

On the evening of Aug 28, 2026, Wang, now a 58-year-old food deliveryman, stepped onto the stage of the Lu Xun Literature Prize award ceremony in Shanghai to receive one of the most prestigious literary honors in China, for Dichu Feixing (Flying Low), his third collection of poetry.

"I have been a food deliveryman for eight years. Life is something I take seriously. So is writing. I use words to document life, believing that literature can make the world warmer and more compassionate," he said in his acceptance speech.