A Lai

阿来

A Lai (aka Alai, A-Lai, Ah-lai, etc.) was born in the Tibetan area of Sichuan in 1959, and first wrote poetry before turning to fiction towards the end of the 1980s. His novel Settling Dust won the fifth Maodun literary prize in 2000, and made his reputation with its lyrical, poetic language, and deep grounding in Tibetan culture and society. In 2005 he published his second novel, Empty Mountain, which tells six stories set in the small Tibetan village of Jicun. In 1998 A Lai became head editor of Science Fiction World, a magazine based in Chengdu, and over the next several years expanded it – it now has a circulation larger than any sci-fi magazie in the world. A Lai currently acts as the chairman of the Sichuan branch of the Writers Association.