Xu Xing

In 2018, Xu Xing completed the shooting and editing of the documentary The Day of Reckoning (腊月三十日到来)

In 2018, Xu Xing was invited by Boston University to teach Chinese independent film production in spring semester as a visiting professor. In the same year, he was invited by the University of Heidelberg to teach Chinese independent film production in fall semester as a visiting professor.

In 2014, Xu Xing won the 5th Korea Gwangwa Gate highest artistic achievement award.

He was one of the judges at the 9th and 10th Rome Asian film festival.

In 2010, Xu Xing began to shoot a new documentary 5+5 in Songzhuang(宋庄), Beijing. The film mainly tells the stories of Lao Jin, the driver of an unlicensed taxi, and artists in Song Zhuang(宋庄) . After the film was completed, it was invited to be shown at the university of Venice, the University of Naples in Italy and Columbia University in the United States.

From 2010 to 2014, he shot the documentary Crime Summary. Most people like to read the history of people with power, status and influence, but few pay attention to ordinary people. Xu Xing accidentally got a pile of prisoners’ forms during the cultural revolution. The “criminals” in the tables " were farmers. Full of doubts, Xu Xing carried his camera and went to shoot and interview those farmers in Zhejiang Province. This documentary film has been widely regarded fill the domestic and foreign academic void in the study of the cultural revolution in China rural areas and farmers.

From 2005 to 2007, Xu Xing shot the documentary A Chronicle of My Cultural Revolution (《我的文革编年史》) with France's TV5 TV station. This documentary was based on his personal experiences growing up in the Chinese Cultural Revolution. He tried to integrate personal memory with national collective memory, which may help the two types of memories confirm and support each other so as to provide today's audience with a kind of both individual and public historical statements. This film has been invited by foreign universities for many times to broadcast in the United States, Germany, Italy, France and other places.

Since 2002, Xu Xing began shooting documentary films. His first documentary Drawing Your Eyes and Eyebrows by the Cliff (《崖畔上画下你眉眼》) was completed in 2002. This year he also hosted "Xu Xing Studio" in the Chinese Language Center of the University of Frankfurt, Germany.

In 1995 the story collection Variations Without a Theme and Other Stories was published in English by Wild Peony Publisher in the United States.

In 1994 and two decades later in 2004, he participated in the St. Malo (France) Literary Festival, an important literary festival in the world. He delivered a keynote speech on Chinese literature, making contributions to Chinese literature.

In 1994 All that Left is Yours (《剩下的都属于你》) was published in France by L’Olivier

In five years between 1991 and 1996 Xu Xing completed the novel All that Left is Yours (《剩下的都属于你》).

Variations Without a Theme won the best short story award at Peking University Student Art Festival in 1989. Later, he published the novellas The Story of A City (《城市的故事》) and Hungry Mice (《饥饿的老鼠》). Short stories, The City That Has Lost Its Song (《失去了歌声的城市》), How Did I Go Mad (《我是怎样发疯的》), Love Story (《爱情故事》), Help (《帮忙》), Martyr (《殉道者》), Don’t Cry At the Crossing (《无为在歧路》) etc.; The plays, The Story of a King and a Horse (《国王和马的故事》) and How a Play was Finished... ( 《一出戏是怎样完成的......》) ; the novel All that Left is Yours (《剩下的都属于你》) as well as the collection of novels, Variations Without a Theme .

In 1989, Xu Xing accepted the invitation of Berlin University of the Arts and left China to live in Germany temporarily as a visiting scholar at the university of Heidelberg. In Heidelberg, he helped resume the publication of Today, the most influential overseas Chinese literary magazine. In the same year, he won the Swedish Kult Tucholsky Prize from Pen Sweden.

In 1986, his five short stories were translated and published in Japan. In 1992, Variations Without a Theme was published in French (Le Crabe a Lunettes by Julliard press) and in Italy (by Theorja).

and nominated for the Prix Médicis étranger Prize in foreign studies. In the same year its German, Italian and Spanish editions were published. Many of his works have been published in Taiwan (1986. Selection of Modern Novels of Mainland China, series 1, 2, Eurasian Press, Taipei), Japan (1989. Modern Literature, Sōsōsha, Tokyo) and Australia (1996. Sydney University Press, Sydney).

The novella Variations Without a Theme was not published until 1985, which aroused a great response and became one of the representatives of "avant-garde novels" in China (“先锋派小说”). The emergence of avant-garde novelists in those years made novel writing take on a brand new form. It made literary discourse greatly break through the narrative and description functions of traditional literary language and created new emotional expression and metaphorical symbolic functions, giving a shock to traditional realistic literary concepts.

In 1981 Xu Xing returned to Beijing after demobilizing from the army. He worked as a waiter and cleaner in Peking Duck House at Hepingmen and began to write. Within six months, he wrote his novel Variations Without a Theme.

After graduating from high school in 1975, Xu Xing went to Zhidan county in northern Shan’xi province to jump the queue of working in countryside. He joined the army in 1977 and served in the 21st Corps of Lanzhou Military Region.

Xu Xing (born March 1956), is a Chinese writer, cultural scholar and independent documentary director from Beijing.