Profile & Major Literary Works     Wang Meng was born on October 15, 1934 in Beijing. Nurtured by his father who taught philosophy at a university, he read avidly during his childhood. While a student in high school, he took an active part in the revolutionary movement led by the underground organization of the Chinese Communist Party, which he eventually joined in 1948.     Soon after the founding of the PRC in 1949, he was assigned to work at the headquarters of the Communist Youth League of China. In 1953 he published his maiden work titled "Long Live the Youth." Two years later, he wrote "The young Newcomer in the Organization Department," a realistic portrayal of the clash between youthful and idealistic revolutionaries and older and entrenched party bureaucrats. He was labeled "rightist" in 1957 and sent down to labor on a farm in Xinjiang Province for seven years, where he learned to speak, read and write in Uygur.     A member of the Chinese Writers Association, he has many publications that include "The Wounded", "A Spate of Visitors." "The Butterfly," "Voices of Spring," "The Movable Parts," and "Bolshevic Salute".     In 1985, he became a member of of the Central Committee of Party, and later he was appointed head of the Ministry of Culture, an official post from which he resigned in 1989. He is now vice chairman of the CWA.     Well-known Chinese writer Wang Meng has been nominated for 2003 Nobel Prize for literature by the US Chinese Writers' Association. It is the fourth time for the writer to bid the Nobel Prize for Literature. Wang Meng is one of China's most beloved contemporary authors and was minister of culture for three years in the late 1980s.   (China Radio International July 17, 2003)    Works available in English 100 Glimpses into China: Short Short Stories from China (by Wang Meng, Feng Jicai, Wang Zengqi and others) (Xu Yihe and Daniel J. Meissner). Beijing: Foreign Languages Press, 1989. Alienation (Nance T. Lin and Tong Qi Lin). Hong Kong: Joint Publishing Co., 1993. Bolshevik Salute: A Modernist Chinese Novel (Wendy Larson). Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1989. Prize-winning Stories from China, 1978-1979 (by Liu Xinwu, Wang Meng, and others). Beijing: Foreign Languages Press, 1981. Snowball (Cathy Silber and Deirdre Huang). Beijing: Foreign Languages Press, 1989. The Butterfly and Other Stories (intro. by Rui An). Beijing: Chinese Literature,1983. The Strain of Meeting (Denis C. Mair). Beijing: Foreign Languages Press, 1989. The Stubborn Porridge and Other Stories (Zhu Hong). New York: George Braziller, 1994.   ( www.renditions.org)    Major Awards     Wang Meng has published over 60 books since 1955, including six novels, ten short-story collections, as well as other works of poetry, prose and critical essays. His works have been translated and published in 21 different languages. Since 1980, Wang Meng has visited numerous countries and regions abroad. He has been made membe of the International Writing Program at the University of Iowa, in 1980, guest of honor of the 48th Congregation of International Pen, New York in 1986, visiting scholar at the Harvard University in 1993, and presidential fellow at the Trinity College,, Connecticut in 1998.     Wang Meng has received numerous national prizes for his short stories, novelettes and reportage since 1980. In 1987, he was awarded winner of the Italian Premio Letterario Internationale Montello as well as winner of the prize for Peace and Culture awarded by Sokagakkai (the Japanese Society of Value Creation). In 1989, he became the member of the honor of the Writers Association, Jordan.                                                 (Congress 2000: Biographies of the Speakers)   Appraisal of Wang Meng by critic       "Wang Meng is the most important writer living in China today," stated Zhu Hong, a prominent chinese literary critic and professor of literature at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, in an introduction to Wang's latest collection of stories titled "The Stubborn Porridge."     "His life and writing carreer have spanned the period of the Liberation from 1949 to the present. He has suffered and triumphed and is till actively engaged in life and writing," Hong added.     Wang is considered a voice of a generation who grew up with the founding of the People's Republic of China. He is a writer who is driven by the constant search for beauty and identity in the world. After the publication of his controversial novel "The Young Newcomer in Organization Department" in 1956, the Chinese government prohibited him from writing for two decades.     It was not until 1978 that Wang was allowed to resume writing. In 1983, he was transferred to work at the Beijing branch of the Chinese Writers's Association (CWA). In 1986, he was appointed Minister of Culture, a position he held until 1989. He is currently the vice chairman of CWA. (http://riceinfo.rice.edu)