Sino-French storyteller. Qinggang Du is a professor and doctoral supervisor at Wuhan University. He holds a Ph.D. in Literature from the University of Paris 8 (Vincennes-Saint-Denis). He is the former Dean of the School of Foreign Languages and Literature at Wuhan University. Professor Du serves as the President of the Chinese Selection Committee for the Prix Goncourt and the Vice President of the Chinese Society for French Literature Research. He has been honored with the Knight’s Order and the Officer’s Order of Academic Palms by the French government. Besides numerous academic publications, his French-language novel Le président Mao est mort (Chairman Mao’s Departure) was selected among the twenty best books of the year in France in 2002. Another French novel, L’Émpire des caractères (or Chinese Characters Travel across the World [字行天下]), was published in Paris in 2019. He has also published a collection of micro-fiction titled There Are Only Toads in the River (河里只有蛤蟆) and another creative work Professor Yifan (一凡教授). (Source: MCLC, 1 April 2026)